The Lost Scroll of Fudo Shin (22 page)

“Especially after he-“  Jimmy’s voice trailed off.

But Vanessa nodded.  “No, it’s all right.  You’re correct.  After he died, my path seemed even more certain.”

“And you’ve never had any regrets?”

Vanessa shrugged.  “I guess not.  Suppose I can’t really imagine doing anything else with my life.”

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Being honest with me.”

Vanessa smiled at him.  “I know this hasn’t been easy on you, Jimmy.  But if it’s any consolation, you’ve handled it all like a professional.  And I mean that.”

“I appreciate that.”  Jimmy stretched his arms and legs trying to get the kinks out.  “I feel like I could sleep for days.”

“Unfortunately, you’ve got one more thing to do before you go to sleep.”

“What’s that.”

Vanessa winked at him.  “Turn out the light, silly.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Morning dawned bright and early, although the fog remained a constant presence all around the village.  To Jimmy, the cool mountain air and the fog combined to produce the feeling of always being watched, but never knowing where the watchers were. 

They ate a quick breakfast of rice and fish in relative silence.  Jimmy felt rested but also anxious about the day ahead of them.  The voice in his head had promised answers.  Vanessa had warned him about the need to make a decision about where his life was headed.  And Jimmy just wanted to get on with things.

After they ate, Vanessa packed their things and they set off from the ryokan, fortified with a final cup of bitter green tea.  The innkeeper wished them well on their travels before bowing and leaving them alone on the village street.

“I get the distinct feeling they’re not exactly used to strangers around these parts,” said Jimmy.

Vanessa shifted her backpack and smiled.  “Welcome to the country.  Travelers aren’t as often seen as they would be in the city.  And you see all the signs out here have a lot more of the kanji on them than the easier syllabary hiragana or katakana characters.  So if you are a traveler in these parts, you’d best know your kanji or else you’ll get lost in no time.”

“I take it you know a lot of them?”

“I know enough.  The real question is whether you know them or not.”

Jimmy smiled.  “Guess I’ll need to learn.”

Vanessa pointed them down the main street.  “We’ll backtrack out of town until we come to the small bridge we walked over last night.”

“There was a bridge?”

Vanessa eyed him for a moment before smiling.  “You did seem fairly exhausted last night.  I suppose I can’t fault you too much for missing the fact that a stream bubbled by underneath us.”

“Sorry.”

“Forget it, let’s get moving.”

They headed back down the main road and eventually left the last house behind them.  From both sides of the road, towering pines curved inward, forming almost a tunnel with their long limbs.  The asphalt was littered with pine needles and the air around them smelled of the sticky sweetness of the trees.  

Vanessa took a deep breath and exhaled smoothly.  “Good clean mountain air.  Nothing like it anywhere in the world.”

Jimmy took a breath of his own and enjoyed the headiness he got from the scent of the pines.  “How far is it to the mountain?”

“Why?  Are you in a rush?”

“Yep.”

Vanessa nodded.  “I would be, too.  We’ve got about a mile until the bridge and then from there, we’ll get off the road and onto the paths that curl up around the mountain.  From the time we leave the road until we get to where we need to be?  I’d say we’ve got a good couple of hours of trekking ahead of us.”

Jimmy shifted the weight on his back.  “Should we run the distance we have left on the road?”

“You really want to?”

“Well, I just thought….”

Vanessa smiled again.  “Take your time today, Jimmy.  Don’t rush things.  You might find out a lot about yourself today.  Just don’t rush it too much, all right?”

“Yeah.”  Jimmy felt a breeze go rushing past him and took another breath.  The area might have been spooky at night, but there truly was a serene beauty to the place that made him feel good.

Neither of them spoke as they made their way down the main road.  Vanessa guided them with her feet making little noise on the paved road.  Every few minutes she would glance back at Jimmy, as if making sure he was still back there.  He grinned.  She was clearly concerned about him, but in a good way.

Not that he had any intention of running anyway.  Where would he go?  And why would he?  Finally, after so many weeks of puzzles, he had a chance to get some real information about this entire mess.  May as well see it through to the end, he figured.

They came upon the bridge and Jimmy saw that it was actually not much a bridge as a stretch of road with a culvert cut under it to allow the stream to pass through.  So he hadn’t been totally out of it last night.  That was good to know.

Vanessa waved him over and squatted off the road in the shadow of a hulking pine.  “We’re going to be following a very small unmarked trail for a while.  You’ll need to pay attention.  The land around here slopes away in places.  A wrong step and you’ll go for a quite a tumble.”

“Got it.”

“There are hidden cliffs as well.  So mind what I do and step where I step.  I don’t want my last image of you to be one of you bouncing down the mountainside.”

Jimmy sighed.  “I said I’ve got it.  I’ll be careful.  Promise.”

“Right.  Off we go then.”

She ducked out from under the pine and brought them halfway up the nearest incline.  She paused as if remembering something and Jimmy drew in closer to her.

“Yeah?”

She pointed at the top of the ridge.  “Something for you to store in that head of yours.  See the top of the ridge?  Never travel along it.  It’s easy going, yes, but you’ll also skyline yourself.”

“Skyline?”

“Make a target of yourself from a distance.  A good sniper, like our friend Merlin, would be able to drop you without a second thought.”

"Is she really a good shot?"

"She's a gifted shooter, yes."

Jimmy pointed way down at the valley.  “It’d be easier walking down there as well.”

“Another no-no.  You can be fired down on from a higher elevation.  In olden times, they would position archers higher up in order to rain down arrows from such spots.  Trust me, you wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of any of those.”

“Gravity would help them fall and puncture,” said Jimmy.  “Gruesome.”

“Indeed.”  Vanessa led them on.  Jimmy found the way tough going as one leg was straighter than the other as they wound their way up the mountain.  Traveling as Vanessa suggested, midway up the slope, was tactically superior, but it also made Jimmy feel constantly off-balance.

“You’ll get used to it,” said Vanessa quietly.  “Just do your best and try to keep the noise down.  Sound travels much farther in the forest like this.”

Jimmy did his best to watch his footing as they climbed.  The trees seemed stuck into the side of the mountain with exposed roots jutting out of the soil at weird angles.  The floor of the forest was a bed of soft pine needles, which helped cut down on the noise, but Jimmy still had to make sure that he didn’t go stumbling with every step he took.  

He changed his walking style and started leaning forward to take some of the strain off of his thighs.  And every time he spotted a root looking to trip him, he’d carefully lift his leg straight up, rather than slanting up at an angle.  Vanessa glanced back and nodded her approval, but kept them moving on a solid pace.

About mid-morning, Vanessa called a halt to their progress and sat down with her back against the closest, thickest tree.  From her backpack, she hauled out two bottles of water and passed on to Jimmy.  “Drink it, even if you’re not thirsty.  Dehydration can get you in the desert, the jungle, the artic, or even a nice forest like this.”

Jimmy popped the top and sucked the water down.  It tasted wonderful and he kept drinking until he felt like he’d replenished himself.

“That’s delicious.”

“Nothing like being on a hard tab to make you appreciate the simplicity of having fresh water.”

“Your father took you on long hikes a lot, didn’t he?”

“What makes you say that?”

Jimmy shrugged around another long sip.  “Just a thought I had.  You seem so totally at ease out here.  I can’t imagine where you would have grown so comfortable unless you’d been brought up doing this.”

She smiled.  “My dad used to take me everywhere he could whenever he had time.  Being with the Regiment, he’d be stationed at home during rotations on the counter-terror team.  He’d go into work, get the day’s jobs done and then scream home and whisk me away to some inhospitable hunk of rock for climbing.”

“I’ll bet you loved it.”

Vanessa looked away.  “With every bit of my heart.  I don’t know, maybe part of me realized that doing what my father did, I was going to be lucky to get only so much time with him.  We never talked about it in that way.  It was always ‘daddy’s work.’  But I think we both knew that we were on borrowed time.”

“Tough way to grow up.”

“Well, like I said, it was always in the back of my mid, but I never focused on it.  All I wanted was to spend as much time with him as possible.  Along with my mum, we were the Three Musketeers.  Always off doing crazy things.  I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything.  And looking back on it now, I can’t believe I was lucky enough to get as much time with him as I did.”

Jimmy took another sip and then recapped the bottle.  "I think this is one of the first times I've ever even hiked."

"Really?"

Jimmy shrugged.  "Wasn't much chance to do it in the orphanages.  The few foster homes I was in were mostly in the city.  There was one I was at that had a nice big backyard that edged up close to some protected lands.  I used to walk along the paths that ran through it thinking how nice it would be to just keep walking off on my own."

"How come you didn't?"

Jimmy sloshed the water around the bottle.  "And do what?  I didn't have any of the training to survive on my own.  Where was I going to go?"

Vanessa smiled.  "You're a sight better suited to it now, aren't you?"

Jimmy shook his head.  "That world seems so old and far away now.  I almost can't even imagine ever going back."

"I don't think you ever can go back, Jimmy."

"Yeah.  I guess."  He stood up.  “How are we doing on our hike here?”

“Good time, actually.  And you haven’t gone tumbling yet, so there’s another bit of good news.”

Jimmy smirked.  “I think some of those trees back there were trying pretty hard to trip me up.”

“Just the way they’ve grown over the years,” said Vanessa.  “The mountains here are thousands of years old at least.  This valley was formed eons ago when two plates rammed into each other and caused the mountains to erupt.”

“There’s a violent meeting I wouldn’t have wanted to see.”

“Well put.”  Vanessa got to her feet.  “Rested long enough, have you?  Ready to get back to the trail?”

“There’s been a trail?”  Jimmy shook his head.  “I haven’t been able to see anything that even vaguely resembles a trail.”

“Well, it’s not blazed,” said Vanessa.  “After all, the part we’re heading to isn’t looking to be visited by much of anyone except those who need to find their way there.”

“That’s a nice roundabout way of saying it’s a secret.”

“True.”  Vanessa pointed to the ground.  “You might think of it more as an animal run, that is if animals ever used it.”

“They don’t?”

She shook her head.  “Animals are like people in that regard.  They want things easy.  So they’ll take the simplest routes to get to water or food.  We’re traveling in the most difficult manner possible because it helps us avoid detection.”  She winked.  “Besides, your ancestors will appreciate the fact that we’re not leading the tour buses to them.”

“If you say so.”

Vanessa started off again and they began climbing an even steeper incline now.  Jimmy expected them the break free of the trees as they climbed, but the pines stayed with them the entire time.

The air grew chilly and Jimmy realized that while he had worn his fleece pullover, he wasn’t prepared for the temperature to dip much lower.  He glanced down at the valley far, far below them and saw that a layer of clouds obscured his view.

Or was it the fog again?

From somewhere above him, he heard a squawking caw that sounded vaguely like a crow.  But it was like no crow he’d ever heard before.  The memories of what Vanessa had told him about the tengu came back to him in the dim light of the dense canopy of pines.

Could they really exist?”

He frowned.  Stuff like that was only in legend.  None of that actually was true, right?

Another caw came from high above him.  Whatever that bird was, it was a lot closer now.

“Vanessa?”
“Just keep moving, Jimmy.  And try to forget about the birds.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Jimmy.  Trust me.”

He sighed and kept climbing.  Eventually, the strange caws died away and the slope eased onto a flatter piece of land.  Jimmy’s thighs were grateful and he risked a quick glance around.

A thick grass grew up here, bordered by an imposing wall of pines.  Jimmy stopped to admire the view, but then Vanessa called him over.  He took a few steps and then stopped.

The roar was absent unless you were directly staring down at it, but in a hidden gorge, a steep waterfall tore down the ancient rock and crashed onto a ledge far below, spilling off into a pool of crystal clear water.

“Wow.”

Vanessa turned to him.  “Welcome to Matsuda Mountain.  The home of your ancestors.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

From where they stood, Jimmy looked down at a forty-foot drop.  The roar of the waterfall overpowered most of his other senses and he was struck by the raw power of it pounding the rocks below.

The pool itself seemed quiet and almost peaceful by comparison.  Ripples ran out toward a sandy shoreline that measured a few hundred feet around.  But otherwise, there was no way to access the gorge unless you climbed down from where Vanessa and Jimmy stood.