In Dark Corners (41 page)

Crack-crack-crack
. Three fingers of fire flashed in the darkness ahead on the dirt road. The sound echoed in Kinjo's head with a sharp familiarity. Despite his fatigue, he moved quickly, flipping off the headband, dropping the wood, and crouching to the ground. The flashes came from a gun; they were being fired upon!

Heart beating rapidly, Kinjo tried to search the darkness with his poor vision. He saw nothing move.

Silence.

Suddenly, he remembered his grandson. Flat on his stomach, Kinjo inched forward until his hand touched the boy. He whispered, "Mongoose?" The boy lay still. Kinjo's fingers explored the boy's face…his eyes were closed. Kinjo slid his hand down across the chest…the schoolboy's shirt was wet and sticky.

"Ahee," Kinjo cried aloud, his heart sinking in his chest.

Footsteps approached.

A sea-soldier, his face stiff with fright, his weapon sagging at his side, as if too heavy for his arms. He had fired;
he
had shot the boy. The anger welled up, choking Kinjo. Why? Why? A senseless act…

The air stirred, a faint whirr.

Kinjo jerked his gaze upward, above the sea-soldier's head. A light? No. Something hovering, stirring the air. He blinked, trying to clear his vision. A figure…shimmering luminous like a spirit. Kinjo shuddered with the recognition.

It was the White Dragon!

The great serpent hovered overhead, its wingbeats stirring the humid air, its eyes glittering red. In one of its foreclaws it clutched something…
the small wooden figurine
!

Anger stirred Kinjo to action. He stood and shouted at the White Dragon. "No, no!" He squeezed his eyes closed, trying to shut away the awful sight. He shook his fist, shouting, "Ahee, no, no, nooo…" When Kinjo opened his eyes, the White Dragon was gone. Once again, the air was still, hot, humid.

The sea-soldier was shaking his head as if denying an accusation, gibbering loudly in his foreign tongue—

A faint groan.

The boy was alive.

"Ahee!" Kinjo kneeled beside his grandson and rubbed the boy's icy hands. The sea-soldier ran to the guard shack.

***

The morning sun beat down on the old bus, making it hotter than the inside of the Kin bathhouse. Kinjo sat in the rear seat, getting little relief through the open windows as the bus jerked along slowly through old Futenma—stopping, starting, stopping…

He was exhausted. Fortunately, they would soon be on the Naha-Nago Highway with fewer stops between villages. It would be cooler. He closed his eyes.

Last night, after the sea-soldier had rushed Mongoose to the Army hospital at Sukiran, the family had followed in a jeep. The doctors had operated and given the boy much blood, but they offered little hope. The family had stayed, maintaining a bedside vigil beside the boy dying under the plastic tent.

Through the long night, Kinjo had reached a decision. At sunrise he left for Kin.

Now, as the old bus clattered along in the intense heat, he dozed. When jerked awake, he kept his thoughts unburdened by studying his fellow passengers. At Kadena, a young man boarded carrying a large, lidded basket. Kinjo guessed the basket contained a
habu
, the snake to be matched against a mongoose in some village fair.

An old woman wearing a blue
kimona
and fine white scarf, her silver hair pulled back in a neat bun, sat across from Kinjo. Her hands, the backs tattooed indigo in the old way, rested on a fish wrapped in a Naha newspaper. A visiting gift, no doubt, Kinjo thought, smiling to himself. Again his eyelids grew heavy and he dozed…

The bus braked to a stop.

Kinjo leaned forward, looking out the open window checking the location: Koza. Another hour or so.

The schoolboy attendant opened the back door, bidding the departing passengers watch the step down, wishing them well, and thanking them. Kinjo felt a pang of guilt in his chest. Mongoose could have taken an after school bus job between Ishikawa and Koza, but the boy had turned it down to assist Kinjo in collecting wood. He closed his eyes as the bus started up again, feeling very weary.

Suddenly Kinjo had a strange sensation of being watched. He opened his eyes and looked about. Ah, there near the front of the…

His breath caught in his throat.

For a moment, he thought the young woman was his wife. She smiled and properly dropped her gaze. Kinjo squinted. The resemblance was not really good. No it was the
samisen
the young woman carried in her lap that triggered the familiarity. Kinjo closed his eyes, the image of Kei-ko strong in his mind. She had been the finest
samisen
player in Kin, much in demand for seasonal dances and plays. As he dozed off, he could hear Kei-ko strumming the three-stringed instrument and humming softly, the gentle music caressing his face like a light breeze.

For the rest of the bus ride, he slept soundly.

***

Several hours later, Kinjo stood in front of the family home. He gazed proudly at the open-windowed, thin-walled hut. Built in a protected swale by his great-grandfather, the hut had survived many storms. Recently, Kinjo and his son had replaced the thatched roof with new red tiles. He nodded to himself; it had been a fine home, indeed.

Kinjo removed his wooden clogs, then entered the main room of the hut. Palm mats protected most of the polished wood floor. He crossed to the eating area and prepared a pot of tea. Slowly sipping the hot brew, he carefully prepared his speech—a dignified request.

His inner spirit fortified with tea and eloquent words, Kinjo dressed in his finest garment, a brown
basa kimona
, woven from plantain fibers by his wife. He lacquered his hair, giving it a deep shine. Then he unrolled his
futon
and sitting cross-legged on the sleeping mat, he closed his eyes, and counseled the ancestral spirits of his decision.

Preliminary preparations completed, Kinjo went outside to his stack of driftwood. He found the special piece of wood wrapped in a piece of tarp. Carefully unwrapping the covering, he brushed off the round table leg. It came from a broken table at the Hanson Officer's Club. The wood was finely grained, a rich brown, almost the color of his
kimona
—a special wood found nowhere in the Ryukyuan Islands.

Kinjo was ready for his trip to Kin Cave.

***

At the mouth of the cave, Kinjo stopped and took a deep breath. He brushed off his fine
kimona
and checked over the table leg. Ready, he stepped into the cave.

The Sculptor was leaning over the small figurine, carving details on the face. Kinjo swallowed, glancing at the white dragon on the silk robe. Than after clearing his throat, he greeted the Sculptor in formal
Shuri
. "I am Kinjo Joken, eldest worldly member of the
anji
of Kin. Two of my male heirs have died from the lung sickness and journey in the spirit land of ancestors. My remaining male heir has sired but one son…" Kinjo's voice trailed off as he looked at the figurine in the Sculptor's hands.

The Sculptor nodded.

"If my grandson joins his ancestral spirits now, the worldly line of the Kinjo family will disappear. There will be no one to observe the graces—maintain the family tomb, fill the rice and
sake
containers, or wash and cleanse the bones of the departed. My ancestral spirits will roam with no wordly contact…perhaps becoming restless, malevolent, and entering the body of a foolish one." Kinjo shook his head, his chest heavy with despair of what might come to pass. "No, a male heir must survive. Therefore, I propose an exchange." Kinjo offered the Sculptor the special piece of wood.

Without accepting the table leg, the Sculptor stared into Kinjo's eyes as if weighing the merit of his offer. The fiery gaze burned into Kinjo's heart, judging the truth.

Minutes passed.

Abruptly, the Sculptor took the piece of wood. He weighed it in his hand, then he inspected the fine grain. Satisfied, he handed Kinjo the small, partially finished figurine.

Kinjo felt freed of a heavy burden. He quickly left Kin Cave, not waiting for the Sculptor to begin the new figurine.

***

In the late afternoon, Kinjo's family returned noisily to the Kin hut. Joyously, they greeted the old man, laden with packages of pork and fresh fish and a bottle of
sake
. Kinjo's son breathlessly described what had happened. The boy had suddenly regained consciousness! He was still under the plastic tent, but the American doctors were sure he would recover.

Neighbors were invited to the celebration to share the good news.

Later, despite protests from the family, Kinjo excused himself from the feast. He refused the assistance of his eldest granddaughter and, still dressed in his fine
basa kimona
, made his way to the beach.

***

Kinjo stared south across the bay, checking the signs. He smelled, tasted, listened, sensing the heavy, dark clouds blowing from the south, moving toward the island…Yes, he was sure, it was coming. As the sun disappeared below the horizon, a faint breeze danced across the water, burnishing the copper bay and caressing the old man's face. Kinjo smiled, enjoying the cool freshness of the air. He squatted in the sand at the edge of the water and waited…

Then, suddenly, the sky darkened and the temperature dropped. The wind stiffened, chopped across the water, and kicked coarse sand into the old man's face—stinging like the attack of a swarm of angry wasps. Still, Kinjo remained squatting, only moving his hand to pull up the collar of his
kimona
. He waited calmly, knowing that soon the White Dragon would come on the Wind of Steel.

Cocking his head, Kinjo listened intently. Yes, above the whine of the wind, he could hear something else…

But it was not the dry whirr of wingbeats. No, it was more like the soft lilt of a
samisen
. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Ahee, a familiar voice carried on the Wind of Steel…And the gentle humming caressed his spirit.

It's funny—not ha ha, but peculiar—how you can reach a stage in life when you think you pretty much have The Big Picture; then one day
wham
—something happens, overturning your most stable beliefs…

It began last week with a television program, Roy Firestone's show,
Up Close,
on ESPN.

Firestone was interviewing Frank Dante, whose column, "
Dante's Inferno
," in the
Sporting News
, is really the inside dope on both college and pro basketball.

After Roy covered the standard questions concerning biography, he asked Dante about the last NBA championship between L.A. and Chicago, Michael leading the Bulls to an upset. "Was it the strangest basketball series you've ever seen?"

Dante, who looks and sounds a little like the late actor Richard Burton, thought for a moment before answering, then he replied, "Yes, a strange series, but I've seen a much stranger game." He paused, cocked his head, and waited, as if asking:
Do you want to hear the story?

Firestone glanced at the camera, raised his eyebrows, then grinned, "You bet…Let the viewers in on it."

Dante, with a kind of distant look in his eyes, began to reminisce in his rich baritone, "This all happened a long time ago, back in '46 after the war."

"You see, I graduated that summer from UCLA with a degree in journalism, interested in a career in sports writing. But with all the veterans flooding back into the job market, it was a tough time for an inexperienced kid to be looking for any kind of job. Nevertheless, by mid-winter I had found a spot as a reporter on a little weekly,
The Desert Wind
, published in a town on the Mexican/California border, Three Springs, only a faint dot on even the best map, about twenty-five miles east of Calexico.

"By the time I actually arrived in town, it was the end of the basketball season for the local high school, the Falcons; a team that drew from a student body of about eighty or so kids, many of them recent immigrants from below the border, who thought you only
kicked
a round ball. Needless to say, the Three Springs team, despite their nickname, had never flown very high—they were the annual doormat of their league. But the '46 season had been different. The team had won the league, prevailed in their section, and were scheduled to play for the Southern California Class A Championship in Los Angeles.

"Well, as fate would have it, they would be playing their mirror image, another border team, Dry Creek; only a county away, about twenty miles west of Calexico, a high school with a similar history—they had never been to the playoffs either.

***

"It was an interesting time to come to town. Three Springs was located in the Imperial Valley which is really a great desert that extends north from Death Valley down across the border into Mexico, only a couple of things enabling the small row crop farmers to make a living: cheap irrigation water from the Colorado River via the All American Canal and cheap labor from the steady stream of green card holders up from Mexico. Added to the inhospitable environment was the fact the town had
never
had anything to celebrate, not even a casualty in WWII.

"So the game would not only be the highlight of the year, it would be the
one
bright spot in the community's uneventful past. All that week leading up to the game there was a keen level of excitement—more intense than any heavyweight championship I would later cover. Everyone, from the smallest Mexican/American farmer to the town's eighty-five-year-old barber, speculated on the Falcons' chances, their eyes lighting up when they talked about 'them boys.'