Tears and Rain
Chapter Eight -- The Devil on a moonless night: The road grows ever longer
By Gabi
Kuri's butt was sore. They'd been on the trail all day, and now as dusk drew on, Kuri was quite tired of her bumping seat. She was riding behind Soujiro, her arms loose around his waist to make sure she wouldn't fall off. When they'd first started that morning, she had been paranoid about falling off, and had kept a vise grip on him, so tight that he'd been obliged to ask her to loosen it, so he could breathe.
She had long ago relaxed into the dull monotony of riding, and her loose posture proved it. She was quite ready to stop for the night, and the image of the tent with it's warm blankets haunted her vision. She blushed a little, remembering her misconstruing of his intentions the night before. It'd be a long time before she made an association like that again, she assured herself.
Still, the rhythmic clop of the pony's hooves was relaxing, and the farther they went, the closer and closer Soujiro's back seemed, until finally, she was leaning against it, her hands still loose around his waist to keep her from falling off. His back was warm from the sun, and as she snuggled against it, she felt so comfortable that she was almost drifting off . . .
"Kuri-san," Soujiro's voice was an unpleasant reminder that they were still on the back of his small pony, "Be careful not to fall asleep or you might fall off."
"Hai," she responded begrudgingly, although her voice seemed rather faint.
She made absolutely no attempt to move, and Soujiro's smile softened, although Kuri couldn't see it from her position snuggled against his back.
They went on for a ways, Soujiro having to shift slightly from side to side to keep Kuri from pitching off the pony's back after she went to sleep. It wasn't hard, since her arms stayed around his waist, even in her half-slumber. In fact, her arms had tightened a little, probably an unconscious reaction in an attempt to stay the bumping and swaying of the horseback ride.
He had to admit, it felt pleasant having her close to him, and it wasn't merely the body warmth that two people in close proximity generated. Since running across the odd young girl who shared the small riding saddle with him, he had discovered a purpose for his life. Protecting and watching over this one girl, no matter how insignificant it might seem, was important in it's own way.
He felt a deep seeded contentment settle over him as he rode, making his habitual adjustments to keep her in the saddle. He was happy. She made him happy. It was as simple as that.
He felt her stir slightly against his back, rubbing her eye or fisting up a handful of the loose material at the small of his back and this movement broke up his absent musings. He directed his wandering thoughts back to the road and noted that they were slowing to an easy stop by a stream.
Soujiro guided his pony into the grass beside the other horsemen, although he stayed mounted while they disembarked to picket their ponies and secure the herd. He stayed in the saddle because he couldn't foresee anyway to dismount without knocking his companion off of the horse as well. Seeing no other alternative, he bent one of his arms behind him and felt for a body part to shake, hoping he wouldn't grab something inappropriate.
His hand grazed her ear, and he traced the curve of her jaw around to her chin with his fingertips. From there it was pretty easy to locate her shoulder, although from the odd position his arm was in, he couldn't exactly shake it. He settled for the next best alternative and poked her.
She stirred again and muttered some words of protest, although it was apparent that she was still asleep. Soujiro poked her again, and this time she seemed to come half-awake, and her response became more intelligible.
"Go away. I'm comfy . . ." she trailed off again, and he could feel her snuggle back against his back. He felt relieved that there were no other horsemen around to see the spectacle. He doubted they looked very brotherly.
He prodded her again and she whined out, "Leave me alone. Come back tomorrow. I don't want to scrub the steps now."
"Kuri," he began, a bit exasperated, to which she sleepily responded,
"I want that rice cake, Souchan!"
He sweatdropped and then tried again, "Maa maa Kuri-san, I promise if you just wake up for a while, I'll set up the tent and you can sleep until morning."
She was still half-asleep, he could tell, and negotiating with someone who is half asleep is not always that easy, "No no. I'm comfy now. I like this."
He poked her again, "Kuri-san, please wake up. You have to get off of the horse. I can't carry you anywhere, then they'll know something is strange about us."
Her voice was small and tiny, pleading delicately, "Can I have that rice cake?"
He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Apparently she even dreamt of food.
"Hai hai, Kuri-san, I promise, just wake up."
He felt her stir against him more determinedly this time. Apparently she had proper motivation now. After her felt her sit up on her own and regain her balance, he slipped off the horse, just in time to catch her as she fell sideways into slumber again. He set her easily on the ground and gently shook her until he was positive she was at least partially awake.
He gave her the reins to the pony and charged her with picketing him, and the larger Dutch horse, whom was tied by a long lead the small pony's saddle, while he set up their tent. She murmured something about being hungry, and threatened to settle back down on the ground to take another little nap. Soujiro worried about the large Dutch horse stepping on her while she slept, so he refused to budge until she started off to the back of the camp, which was springing up around them like a garden full of weeds, to picket the two animals.
Once he was sure that she was at least headed in the direction of the other picketed horses, he set off himself, to the growing pile of baggage that was being unloaded from the pack animals. Their tent, he noted, had already been unpacked and sat in a neat little bundle off to the side. Probably someone had preformed this nicety because he was late to the pile. He had to admit, these horsemen were congenial folk.
He gathered up the bundle and carried it off to the outskirts of the rapidly developing tent village. Setting up the tent was not complicated, Soujiro discovered, but was rather tedious instead, especially in the deepening dusk. After about twenty minutes, Soujiro was satisfied with his construction, so he put Kuri's blankets in a neat little pile inside the tent, making a point of leaving his outside the tent. He didn't want Kuri to put them in a predicament similar to the one the night before, after all.
After finishing with the tent, he headed back to the fire, where he was sure Kuri had retreated to by this point, as night had almost completely fallen. Sure enough, he found the girl grinning and wide awake beside the fire, a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other. She had gotten to the fire early, he could tell, because the log she sat on was completely tenanted. Soujiro was obliged to take of a seat almost directly across the fire from her.
She chatted amiably with her companions about the ride, and when the dinner was dished out, she ate voraciously, and the horsemen on the log with her laughed and slapped her on the back. Soujiro thanked the heavens that she had no delicate sensibilities that might give her away as a girl. The men did tease her about her voice, but they also called her ''laddie-buck'' and said that it'd deepen in time.
They spent about an hour around the fire, eating, enjoying its warmth, and listening to stories, but after a while, the foreman announced his intention of turning in for the night, and the group broke up from there. Kuri and Soujiro lingered, enjoying the warmth for a few more minutes, until finally, one of the hands smothered the fire and banked the embers for the night.
With the fire smoldering out, Soujiro rose and headed back towards their tent, Kuri trotting after him. She prattled on, in a low voice, about how good the food had been, and how interesting the stories were, and how glad she was that she was going to get to go to bed. Soujiro listened idly on, smiling absently, by this time quite accustomed to her outbursts, and quite glad that she was moderating her voice, so not to wake the other horsemen who were trying to turn in themselves.
Absently, in an attempt to add to their one-sided conversation, he asked if she had picketed the horses in a spot with plenty of grass. She had responded by looking absolutely blank. This worried him, so he repeated his question. She blinked and asked him what he was talking about. Patiently, he explained that he had left the care of the horses with her, as her only responsibility of the evening. She honestly replied that she couldn't remember anything about it at all.
"Come again?" he smiled serenely, "I must not have heard you right. I thought you said that you couldn't remember picketing the horses."
She fretted a bit before answering, "You head right. I don't remember."
He breathed in slightly, but gave her no other tells before simply stating, "I see."
Kuri balled up fists of the loose material of her gi and looked ashamed. He was disappointed in her, she could tell. Whether or not he actually told her didn't matter at all. In fact, the fact that he refused to tell her ground the feeling in that much deeper. It was as if he were sparing her feelings, even from a remonstration she deserved.
Her eyes teared up at the corners, but she refused to cry. Instead she managed to blurt, "I'm going to go make sure that the horses are ok. You go on to sleep," before fleeing into the disapproving comfort of the darkness.
Her reaction caught him completely off guard, but he made no move to follow her into the darkness. It was, after all, probably best to leave her alone for a while.
*
As she walked off alone through the already dew damp grass, her emotions settled down a bit. She knew that when she arrived at the picket lines she'd find their two horses grazing peacefully. There was no other possible outcome. She paused. All right, there were several other possible outcomes, but none of them were pleasant. She could do nothing but hope for the best.
Arriving among the picket horses, she calmed herself and thought singularly about finding the horses happily picketed, as if this singularity of thought would make her hope a reality. The grass where the horses were picketed was knee deep, and it dampened the legs of her hakama. Sighing, she patiently checked each of the horses in the darkness, her eyes becoming gradually accustomed to the darkness as she went along.
Finally, near a copse of trees, she found the large Dutch horse and the smaller Japanese horse grazing placidly. The small Japanese pony even came over to her and nuzzled her hand. She patted his neck and scratched his neck and was about to leave when the large Dutch horse nickered at her.
Kuri was so pleased at finding the two horses safe and sound, she forgave the larger horse his earlier transgressions and went over to give him a pat as well. She was quietly approaching him from behind when she heard a twig snap right behind her. She froze and her heartbeat immediately sped up, although she knew that there were a hundred different mundane reasons for the sound. She waited to see if there would be another.
Then a strong hand clamped firmly over her nose and mouth and hauled into a rough embrace.
Kuri tried to scream but the air, having no other place to go, was forced back into her lungs. Her ears popped from the effort of it, and the grip she was held in began to make her feel dizzy.
Suddenly a voice sounded hot and familiar against her ear, "Now I can give you what you deserve." He laughed low, wet, and rancid.
Her mind raced. Who was he? Who was he? Was it someone after Soujiro? No, that didn't make sense. It was someone after her, he had said so himself. The dizziness was affecting her thought patterns. Then suddenly she had it, like a blind man falling over the truth of all existence. It was the man from the bar. It was the man Soujiro had knocked unconscious. Her eyes squeezed shut. He seemed infinitely more dangerous now, with a hand clamped over her mouth and another holding her shoulder in place. Tears squeezed unbidden from the corners of her eyes. He was going to smother her. Then the tension between the hands on her mouth and shoulder tightened, as if in a test move. She tried to whimper, but could make no sound. He was going to snap her neck. She was going to die. Right there. Right then. She felt her stomach muscles tighten and then flop over. She felt as if she were going to retch.
He sneered, "Yes, you know who I am now, don't you? When you get to hell, be sure to tell the devil I sent you."
He gripped tighter and Kuri knew that her life was going to end in one quick jerk. Then, before he could move, Kuri felt the man knocked away from behind her. She fell forward onto her knees, and took a ragged breath before struggling onto her feet. She didn't look back, but threw herself into another maddening headlong run back to the tent, stumbling most of the way, because the restraint on her oxygen flow had numbed her senses.
She was so impaired that she almost didn't notice when she blundered into someone, and tried to scramble over him. The person she had blundered into coddled and hushed her and as she self-hyperventilated in the safety of familiar arms, she managed to wheeze out that she'd been attacked. She felt him stiffen, and he carefully let her loose and started off in the direction she'd come in.
She grabbed two fistfuls of his gi and clung to his back, unwilling to be left behind, or alone. His voice was soft and seemingly unaffected.
"All right. Stay right behind me."
He needn't have warned her, because she clung like a second skin, jumping at every stray hoof stamp. Silently, she guided him along by tugging at his gi. They made more noise than he would have liked to, but it was mostly covered by the ambient sounds of the horses.
Soujiro approached their horses stealthily, creeping low through the grass; Kuri couched behind him, bewilderedly. After they had moved this way for a minute or two, Soujiro rose almost absently. Kuri, still bewildered, follow him up.
"Won't he see us?" she whispered frantically, and he felt her small hands fretting against the small of his back.
"It doesn't matter if he hears us," he answered truthfully.
"What?!!" he voice was incredulous, and oddly high pitched.
He gently took her arm and drew her out from behind him, at the same time pointing to a crumpled heap in a flattened out patch of grass. Kuri stood rooted in place as Soujiro moved to examine the dead man.
He rolled the man over, took a long look in the darkness and then rolled him back to lie on his face. Kuri didn't have to see anything more than she had already seen. Quietly, he came back to her, after stopping to pat the large Dutch horse on the rump. He nickered.
"What happened?" she asked helplessly, "I don't understand."
"He was holding you behind the horse, wasn't he?" he asked softly. He was turned from her, and in the darkness, she couldn't see his face.
"Hai."
"Akuma didn't like that. He bucked and kicked that man, as far as I can tell. It looks like it broke lots of his ribs. One of them probably punctured a lung," he did not add that it looked as if the large horse had then made an effort to trample the man's skull in.
She managed a nervous smile, "Then he was looking out for me. Maybe he isn't so bad after all . . ."
She didn't get a chance to finish that statement, because all of the sudden she was yanked off her feet forcibly by her pony tail.
"Akuma! Akuma! Take back all the nice things I said about you! You are a demon!" she squealed angrily.
In her company, Soujiro found it easy to let go of his cares in a long, soft laugh.