7th Sigma (15 page)

“It's so
far
.”

Karen nodded again. “He insisted. He said, ‘If I can still walk up Mount Fuji every year, I can walk a few kilometers to Ruth-chan's new dojo.'”

“He hasn't been out of Japan since the opening of our old dojo.”

Karen nodded. “True.” She grinned wickedly. “I heard that Porter tried to get him to come for the twenty-fifth anniversary but Tamada refused.”

Ruth blinked. “Real-ly.”

Karen nodded. “Porter told me at summer camp, but he shrugged it off. Said it was a scheduling conflict. Tamada's dojo
cho
told me differently when I saw him in California. Tamada won't accept Porter's phone calls—he's ‘unavailable' to Porter until further notice. He must be furious about the adultery.”

Ruth shook her head. “Close as we were, Sensei wouldn't act that way because of mere adultery. It was Porter sleeping with his own student.
That
, to Sensei, would be unforgivable.”

The rest of the guests had caravanned together, crossing into the territory at Aztec and taking four days to make it into Perro Frio on horseback and wagon. Tamada Sensei walked most of the way, carrying a bamboo walking stick, and, as the rest of the party's aches and pains increased, he leaned on it less and less. As their morning groans increased, his smile broadened and his step lightened and he led the way up to Ruth's cottage, the bamboo balanced jauntily over his shoulder.

Ruth ran forward and dropped to her knees before him. He bowed back and drew her to her feet, his face all folds and tears.

Kimble worked like a demon, fetching, carrying, serving, answering questions, and helping people unaccustomed to territory ways.

On the last day of the seminar, half of Perro Frio and a scattering from other nearby villages came to the opening ceremony and watched a demonstration of techniques by all the attending instructors. At the end, Ruth demonstrated
iaido,
drawing and cutting, with the milky white ceramic blade, then doing the same techniques again with wooden
bokken
as Kimble attacked with the same. When she was done, Tamada Sensei promoted her, on the spot, to
Rokudan
, sixth-degree black belt.

Kimble was sitting close and he heard him say to Ruth, “The instructor's quality is manifest in the student.”

Ruth bowed very low and said, “My instructor is of the
highest
quality.”

Tamada Sensei threw back his head and laughed. “I wasn't talking about
your
instructor!” He pointed at Kimble, “I was talking about
his
!” He started to turn and then said directly to Kimble, “What rank?”

Kimble was confused. “Excuse me, Sensei?”

“No rank, Sensei,” said Ruth. “Just
keiko
.” Practice.

“
Keiko, keiko, keiko
,” said Tamada Sensei. “Good. Nonetheless, with your instructor's permission, you are promoted to
nidan
.”

Ruth bowed and Kimble followed her lead. “
Domo arigato gozaimashita
, Sensei.”

After class ended Athena led several aikidoists over and surrounded him.

“What?” he said, wary.

“We normally do it at
shodan
, but you skipped that. Relax.”

They made him lie back, supporting him with their arms, then, on the count of three, threw him as high as the rafters, so high, he had time to wonder if they were going to catch him.

They did.

As the audience trailed out of the dojo he saw a familiar set of shoulders in the crowd. He watched and saw the man glance back over his shoulder, revealing the beaky nose and bushy eyebrows. Captain Bentham saw Kimble watching, touched his finger to his forehead, and walked on.

“Did I see Jeremy?” Ruth asked.

Kimble nodded.

“Too bad he didn't stay. It was nice of him to come.”

“Yes, Sensei.”

 

PART II

 

“When he comes to the Great Game he must go alone—alone, and at peril of his head. Then, if he spits, or sneezes, or sits down other than as the people do whom he watches, he may be slain. Why hinder him now? Remember how the Persians say: The jackal that lives in the wilds of Mazanderan can only be caught by the hounds of Mazanderan.”

—RUDYARD KIPLING,
Kim,
Chapter 7

10

Lessons

Lujan drove his peddler's wagon into the dojo yard and said, “Hey, kid. You want to buy some candy? I've got all sorts of different candy.”

Ruth, standing beside Kimble, stiffened but Kimble put his hand on her arm. “It's Lujan,” he said quietly. “The agent I worked with in Parsons.”

She breathed out. “Ah. He's joking?”

“Yes. He's giving me back some of my own sass.”

She turned back to Lujan. “Tea, Mr. Lujan?”

“Why thank you, Ms. Monroe. I'd take it kindly.”

She turned back to the cottage. “See if he has some lamp oil. We're low.”

Kimble invited Lujan to stay the night or for supper, but the man shook his head. “In a hurry. Lamp oil? Take that plastic drum off the back. The whole thing. It's not opened yet and I'll travel faster for it.”

“If you're in such a hurry, why'd you stop?”

“Pritts broke out of his own jail after the trial, the night before the troop arrived to transport him north to the federal pen in Colorado.”

The blood drained from Kimble's face. “He got
away
?”

“Someone helped. The city appointed new deputies but one of them is missing. Oh, and two of them are dead.”

“Pritts do it?”

“Or the missing deputy. Or both.”

“Are you taking the word to the capital?”

Lujan tilted his head and looked at him.

Kimble said, “Right, heliograph. So what
is
your hurry?”

“Heading south. I've seen him close up and personal, like you. Possible he'll try for Mexico. I'm gonna haunt the crossings, hang with the Coyotes. The service will airdrop posters to the legitimate crossings but it'll take a couple of weeks to widely distribute his picture.”

“You need me to go with you?” Kimble felt a fierce need to do something.

“Ha! Captain said you'd offer but he just wanted you to know so you could keep your eyes open around here. Period.” Lujan leaned closer. “Ever since he saw the demo at your dojo's grand opening, I think he's a little scared of your teacher.”

Distractedly, Kimble said, “Wise man.”

Lujan stayed long enough to drink his tea. As he prepared to drive on he spotted the
horno
. “You bake? I've got two twenty-five-pound bags of flour. Would help with the weight.”

He left them on the ground and drove off when Ruth stepped into the cottage to get her purse.

“He's in a terrible rush,” Kimble said when she came back out. “I don't think he expected to be paid.” He licked his lips, then told her about the jailbreak.

She eyed him intently. “You're furious.”

Kimble blinked. “Oh. That's what that is.” He knew he felt something, but until she named it he just knew that his vision had narrowed and his jaw ached from clenching his teeth.

“Yes, Sensei. Furious.”

*   *   *

HE
stayed late the next day at school, working through a tricky algebra proof with Mrs. Sodaberg. It was extra credit but he enjoyed figuring it out. Mrs. Sodaberg guided him lightly, mostly with questions, until it was solved.

He was taking the back path from the school toward the country road south when he heard voices and then a yell. “No! Johnny, stop it! NO!”

He followed the voices, bursting through the bushes into a small clearing. Two half-dressed figures, Johnny Hennessey and Luanne Tuscano, one of the younger upper-form students, struggled on a blanket. Johnny was shirtless and his pants were partway down. Luanne's dress top was down around her ribs, and her hem was up, and Johnnie was trying to pull her panties down past her knees.

Kimble took two long strides and kicked him in the side of the head.

“What the hell!” screamed Luanne. She was scrambling to cover her breasts while pulling her panties up.

Johnny fell over and lay unmoving.

“Why'd you do that? Are you insane?”

“He was raping you!”

“You killed him!”

For a dreadful instant, Kimble thought she might be right. He crouched over Johnny and checked the pulse at his throat. It beat steadily but his eyes were half open and the side of his head was swelling where Kimble had kicked him.

“Christ. Sit here with him. Make sure he doesn't swallow his tongue. I'm going after Miss Aragon.”

When he returned with Mrs. Sodaberg and the nurse, Luanne was fully dressed. What's more, even though he was still unconscious, Johnny was also dressed and the blanket had disappeared.

Johnny woke up while they were carrying him into the village. He couldn't tell what day of the week it was or who was president. “Concussion,” said Marisol.

“Not necessarily,” muttered Mrs. Sodaberg.

Kimble had already told Mrs. Sodaberg and the nurse what had happened as he guided them back to the clearing. Luanne told a completely different story.

“Me and Johnny had been looking for butterflies for my science project when Kimble came out of the bush and kicked Johnny! You know its not the first time he's picked on him.”

Mrs. Sodaberg and Marisol believed Kimble. “The blanket was stuffed behind a stand of cholla,” said Marisol. “And she didn't get his fly buttoned straight.”

Both Luanne's and Johnny's parents sided with their children and, as both fathers were on the school board, the school board did also.

Martha Mendez's husband, Carlos, was the village council member whose turn it was to be constable. He interviewed all three teens multiple times. At the end of it all, he refused to pursue charges of assault
or
rape.

“Your daughter's told me three different stories, now,” he said when Mr. Tuscano protested. “Johnny doesn't remember, he says, and with a concussion, that's possible, but he also has given me different versions of what he was doing with Luanne. Every time I talked to Kimble, I got the same exact story. And isn't this your blanket?”

The school board suspended Kimble for a month.

“Thank God,” Kimble said.

Mrs. Sodaberg brought several months' worth of course work out to the dojo and let Ruth know in no uncertain terms, what most of the village really thought. “He may be the apple of his parents' eye, but too many broken windows, black eyes, and stolen pies can be laid at Johnny's door. And he and Luanne may have thought they were discreet but it wasn't the first time they'd been caught making out.”

When Mrs. Sodaberg had left, Ruth finally commented on the whole mess. “Now I
know
you had less dangerous techniques you could've used. Kicking him in the head? He wasn't Pritts, you know.”

Kimble sighed. “Yeah, I know. Now.” He kicked the base of the wall. “Luanne looks nothing like the Cruz girl, but it was Francesca's face I was seeing. Her voice I was hearing.

“Luanne and Johnny were probably fooling around and he wanted to go farther than she did. She was yelling for him to stop. Not really yelling for help.”

“Did
she
say that?” Ruth asked mildly.

Kimble shrugged. “She was chasing butterflies, remember?”

Ruth said, “Could be she
was
yelling for help. She just didn't want to admit to her parents what she'd been doing. Her father is very religious.”

“That's not how you put it after the school board protest.”

There'd been an effort by a minority of the school board to introduce Bible studies into the school curriculum. At a well-attended public meeting, Ruth had spoken against the effort on a First Amendment basis. Kimble's teacher, Mrs. Sodaberg, had agreed. She also expressed the opinion that changing their status to a “religious school” would result in the Territorial School System cutting support for their school. The TSS currently supplied all study materials and over half of the teachers' salaries. In a narrow majority, the board had concluded, “Church matters for church. School matters for school.” It could be read as a victory for Separation of Church and State but behind-the-scene reports said that what really killed it were arguments over whose specific doctrine would be taught.

“Didn't you call him a ‘narrow-minded, fundamentalist bigot'?”

Ruth glared and said to Kimble, “You have a good memory but that's not always a virtue.”

Kimble sighed. “It's not the month away from school that bothers me. It's going back.”

*   *   *

OF
the two-dozen chicks they'd gotten from Rooster Vigil back in August they had seventeen survivors. A roadrunner had taken two while they were still chicks and, more recently, a breeding pair of coyotes had carried off two fledglings one early morning. The last three casualties had been roosters and, while they got up early most mornings, Ruth liked to sleep in on Sunday. The roosters had been the centerpiece of a meal served during the dojo's grand opening.

Kimble wasn't sure whether the chickens thought of him as another chicken or even their mother but whenever he showed up, they all came running. They were nearly full-grown and a few had started clucking. Most, though, still peeped, but all knew that when Kimble showed up he often had feed or scraps or would turn over rocks in the garden to reveal bugs and grubs.

They liked melon rinds, cracked corn, and worms, but cockroaches were like crack cocaine to them.

For his part, Kimble loved sitting by the garden as the birds scratched and pecked. Every time he moved they would run over to see if he was reaching into a pocket for a treat or turning over rocks. Whenever he was upset, he would go sit with the chickens.