THREE
The criminals and gamblers clustered on the stairs, looking at the crippled samurai who stood beside the frail maiko. The gang had quite an assortment of weapons.
"May we help you?" said Samurai Jack, who stood behind his companions.
"We want our property back!" said a particularly ugly, badly scarred specimen. "He cheated! His dice were loaded."
Jack hadn't even considered that possibility, but now that it had been brought up, he couldn't honestly put it past Mad Jack. "Were they?" he asked.
"No. At one time I did own a pair of loaded dice, but they were stolen several months ago. These people lost Kiku-san through their own stupidity," Mad Jack replied with his usual exquisite tact.
"Who are you calling stupid?" the spokesman demanded.
"I rest my case," Mad Jack said.
The criminals looked at the samurai who wore a sword on his left side and had his right arm in a sling, and they laughed at him, and the spokesman said, "We were going to break your other arm and let it go at that, but now we're really going to hurt you! What do you say to that?"
Mad Jack's grin widened. "I say, Fire!"
There was a great deal of noise and blood as Mad Jack and Kiku drew out guns and opened fire together. Jack threw his dagger, more because he felt obliged to contribute something to the group effort than because his help was really needed. Mad Jack and Kiku were doing fine on their own.
There was sudden silence. Smoke drifted. Kiku sneezed. A shell casing rolled off the step on which she stood and bounced down with a faint plink-plink-plink. Jack waited to see what she would do next. Now that she had a gun in her hand, she might decide to shoot her new owner and achieve total freedom. Although he was quite willing to let her walk away, Jack couldn't allow her to shoot Mad Jack, whom he needed, so he watched her closely.
Kiku returned Mad Jack's pistol. "Kuro-Jack-san, you did not seem surprised that they came."
"I wasn't. After you've been gambling for a while, you get to a point at which you can recognize who will lose gracefully and who won't."
"So you expected to be attacked," she went on.
"Yes." He cocked his head, as if wondering when she were going to get to whatever point she intended to make.
Gently, carefully, she touched his arm through the sling. "Even though you were injured, still you were willing to fight. You could have just let me go back to them. Kuro-Jack-san, you are very brave."
He bowed slightly, started to reply to her, and reconsidered, instead casting a triumphant glance at Samurai Jack. "I am a samurai!"
"We should probably leave now," Jack said.
"Yes, we should." Kiku pattered down the stairs and began rifling pockets. "Even though there is no law in these parts, so we are unlikely to be arrested, the other criminals in town may unite against us." She pulled Jack's dagger out of a dead fish-faced creature, wiped it on the creature's tunic, and handed it to Mad Jack, who passed it on to Jack. Jack sheathed it and hurried back into the room to leave a tip for the poor soul who would have to clean up.
When he came out, Kiku was triumphantly holding up a small piece of plastic. "Keystrip!"
They went to the front desk. The clerk had evidently already got the details of what happened. His voice shook as he asked, "Was everything all right?"
"Yes," Jack said. "We apologize for the disturbance."
The clerk looked nervously at Mad Jack's burning red eyes. "Don't worry about it."
Jack followed Mad Jack out, Kiku trotting along in the middle with her furoshiki. They covered her while she tried her keystrip on parked aerocars. The third one opened.
"I should drive; you two cover our retreat with the guns," Jack said, and they got into the back, and he got behind the driver's panel. He could see them in the rearview mirror. Kiku was smiling at Mad Jack, and he was preening. Jack hoped that at least one of them was also paying attention out the rear and side windows.
As it happened, the carload of criminals who pursued them were not interested in stealth. They opened fire even before they had passed the village limits. Kiku retracted the rear window. Mad Jack aimed carefully and killed the driver with one shot. The pursuing aerocar spiraled down and hit the ground in a crumple of metal.
"That wasn't so bad," Kiku said.
"No," Jack said, glancing in his rearview mirror again. "But those two carloads of bounty hunters coming up on us may present a problem."
"How can you tell they're bounty hunters?"
"I see enough of them; they all have that look about them."
"Why," she exclaimed, "you are not just a samurai called Jack--you are Samurai Jack! I had never heard it said you had a brother."
Jack wouldn't have tried to explain all that to her even if he hadn't been having to concentrate on his evasive maneuvers.
"Slow down a little," Mad Jack said. "We're a little out of pistol range."
"It is such an honor to meet you both," Kiku said with a shy giggle. Mad Jack let go with a barrage from his pistol. Jack could see holes in one of the cars, but there had been no kills. Kiku went on, "Why, Samurai Jack-san, I used to wish I could even catch a glimpse of you, much less meet you! Kozuke always said you were the greatest bugeisha he'd ever heard of." She fired and killed a bounty hunter in one of the passenger seats. "And Kozuke was right, as usual. I wish he could have met you, Jack-san, and you too, Kuro-Jack-san." More gunfire. One of the pursuing cars spiraled down in flames. "Kuro-Jack-san, what a great bugeisha you must be, to remain modestly in the background." Mad Jack somehow managed to preen and fire at the same time. "It is the greatest warrior who is the most humble." More preening. More shooting. "But there, I go on like a schoolgirl."
"Quite all right," Mad Jack said as they headed into a forested area. "Kiku-san, just in case we don't survive--"
"Of course we will survive. With two great warriors such as yourselves here, how could we not?"
Jack barely avoided hitting a tree.
"Well, just in case, I think I should tell you that you are a remarkably perceptive and observant woman."
"Thank you, Kuro-Jack-san."
"Jack!" Mad Jack said. "Speed up while she reloads me."
"If I speed up I'll probably hit a tree."
"And if you don't our brains will be all over this car! Move!"
The bounty hunters were indeed hot on their trail. Ahead of them was a huge pine tree. Jack opened the throttle and drove straight for it. At the last possible moment, he swerved straight up. The bounty hunters hit the tree head-on.
"See, I told you we'd survive," Kiku said calmly.
Jack circled back down and landed. The bounty hunters' car was a crumpled mess, not salvageable. Five bodies, thrown clear, lay sprawled among the trees--
No, four bodies. One bounty hunter stirred, and sat up on his elbow as the samurai and the maiko got out of their own aerocar. Mad Jack walked over to the live bounty hunter, pistol ready.
"I surrender!" the bounty hunter said.
"We lack the manpower to take prisoners," Samurai Jack advised him. "Sorry."
"Even if we did have the manpower, to whom would we turn in our prisoners?" Busy searching bodies, Kiku didn't even look up as she spoke. "We have nothing to do with Aku. Your predicament is your own fault. If you hadn't been trying to capture us and turn us over to Aku, you would not be here now."
Jack turned to prying open the bounty hunters' trunk, not wanting to converse with the man any more. It was bad enough to make money by selling people to Aku, but then to beg mercy from one's prospective victims...Disgusting.
After their close call, he was still a little jumpy, and his head whipped around at a sudden noise, but it was only Mad Jack cocking the pistol.
"My leg's broken!" the bounty hunter said, as if that would have made some difference to him had positions been reversed.
"It does look that way," Mad Jack agreed, and killed him.
Birds chirped. Pine needles rustled in a gentle breeze. Jack went through the bounty hunters' trunk. No cold-weather gear, but... "Gunners! This is your lucky day! Look at all this two-eighteen ammunition. Boxes and boxes of it."
"Good," Mad Jack said. "While I regain the use of my arm, we can go deep, deep into the forest, where no one will hear us, and I can start you two on shooting practice.--Anything else?"
"Not really," Jack said. "Clothes...a couple of extra pairs of shoes, that don't look as if they'd fit any of us...their lunch..."
"We might eat that," Kiku said. "What were they having?"
Jack opened the bag and sniffed. His stomach turned. "Haggis."
"What?" Kiku said.
"What?" Mad Jack said.
"What is haggis?" Kiku asked.
"You don't want to know," Samurai Jack said.
**********************************************************************
During the five weeks it took for Mad Jack to regain mobility in his arm, Samurai Jack became an excellent pistol shot. He also became very friendly with Kiku. He grew to like and respect her tremendously, and wished there were some way he could warn her away from Mad Jack. She was far too fond of the double, who was not fit to fold her obi (not that she ever let either of them touch it, whether to fold it, or unfold it, or help tie it; she was even more fussy about it than Mad Jack was about his underwear).
Very early on the morning of November 22, Kiku took the car and went into Akuville with a shopping list, so that the wanted samurai and his twin could stay hidden in the forest. She had a car, a gun, and plenty of money, but by now neither of them had the slightest doubt that she would return. As the sky brightened, Jack watched Mad Jack run through practice kata exercises with his sword, looking carefully for signs of lingering stiffness that might be fatal in combat.
"You are ready," he said when Mad Jack finished, and then he added regretfully, "I shall miss Kiku."
Mad Jack sheathed his sword and said nothing.
"You must send her away," Jack said firmly. "It would be unfair to her to take her along."
"I said I would, and I will!" Mad Jack snapped, and Jack left it at that.
By lunchtime Kiku was back with all the cold-weather gear they had requested. Jack noticed she had also bought some for herself, and he felt even worse. At dusk the car landed in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, and the three of them had dinner over a campfire. Jack found the meal reminiscent of what the monks had called "the Last Supper."
Kiku looked up at a towering peak that pierced the round ball of the moon. "Why have you come to these mountains so late in the year, o-samurai? What will we do here?"
They glanced at each other. Then Mad Jack said, "We must go up, where the air is too thin and the peaks too high and the trails too narrow to fly the car. We have no further need of it. You take it, Kiku-san. And keep the remaining money as well. I give you your freedom. You may go wherever you like."
She thanked him effusively, bowing many times, but she showed no signs of leaving.
"No point in your sleeping out here in the cold," Mad Jack said. "Feel free to leave now."
"I'm not leaving," Kiku said. "You said I could go wherever I liked. I would like to go where you go."
"That is the one place you cannot go, Kiku-sama," Jack said gently. "Goodbye and may the gods and your ancestors watch over you."
"I do not intend to leave you, o-samurai."
"We aren't giving you a choice," Mad Jack said. "Go!"
"Have I displeased you, Kuro-Jack-san?"
"No! No, you have not. Nonetheless, you are dismissed. I have no further need of you." There was a strange choked note in the rasping voice.
Hurt, bewildered, Kiku looked from one to the other.
"Oh, hell," Jack said. "Look, Kiku-sama. You are not being sent away because of anything you have done or not done. We are going into the Pit of Hate to kill Aku. That is why your company is no longer wanted."
She stared at him, wide-eyed. "You intend to enter the Pit?"
"And come out, gods willing."
"Then you will certainly need all the help you can get," Kiku said briskly. "I volunteer."
"No," Jack said firmly. "Listen to me, Kiku-sama. You have the heart of a warrior, but you have not had sufficient training. We'll be lucky if we survive, and we are experienced samurai. To take you along would be to murder our dear friend. We will not do it."
"In short," Mad Jack said, "go away."
"But--"
"Go away!"
She went, in tears.
Jack watched her drive away and felt like crying himself. He consoled himself with the thought that at least she was now safely away from Mad Jack, that she was much better off than she had been when he'd met her.
"Watch out for her doubling back to follow us," Mad Jack said morosely.
"If she does we will have to disable the car and take her back down the mountain. I don't think she could climb it by herself."
"Want to bet?" Mad Jack said, even more morosely. The campfire flames danced in his red eyes. "Well, we can't climb if we don't get any sleep."
They set off at dawn. There was no sign of pursuit from Kiku, which was a relief to Jack; he would have hated to have her encounter the belligerent goat-people, or any of the mountain's other dangers, on his account. At least this time the mountain and its denizens seemed to be in a good mood. He and his companion made excellent progress all day and passed a peaceful night in camp halfway up. In the morning they ate quickly and set out again. They were now coming close to where Jack had had the run-in with the goat-people when he climbed this mountain previously, so he wasn't surprised to encounter a horned lookout. Knowing it probably wouldn't do any good, he still tried courtesy first. "Goat man! We intend to harm no one; we have taken care to damage nothing. Please let us pass." He dodged as the creature charged.
Mad Jack stepped forward. "Hey! Goat! Remember me?"
The goat-man took one look at him and ran away bleating. Mad Jack smiled.
On Tuesday morning they were near the summit, and Mad Jack was checking each cleft in the cliffs very carefully. Finally they came to a steep step made of crumbling rock. Mad Jack stood on Jack's shoulders, peeked over the ledge, and scrambled up. "This is it! This is the door!"
The criminals and gamblers clustered on the stairs, looking at the crippled samurai who stood beside the frail maiko. The gang had quite an assortment of weapons.
"May we help you?" said Samurai Jack, who stood behind his companions.
"We want our property back!" said a particularly ugly, badly scarred specimen. "He cheated! His dice were loaded."
Jack hadn't even considered that possibility, but now that it had been brought up, he couldn't honestly put it past Mad Jack. "Were they?" he asked.
"No. At one time I did own a pair of loaded dice, but they were stolen several months ago. These people lost Kiku-san through their own stupidity," Mad Jack replied with his usual exquisite tact.
"Who are you calling stupid?" the spokesman demanded.
"I rest my case," Mad Jack said.
The criminals looked at the samurai who wore a sword on his left side and had his right arm in a sling, and they laughed at him, and the spokesman said, "We were going to break your other arm and let it go at that, but now we're really going to hurt you! What do you say to that?"
Mad Jack's grin widened. "I say, Fire!"
There was a great deal of noise and blood as Mad Jack and Kiku drew out guns and opened fire together. Jack threw his dagger, more because he felt obliged to contribute something to the group effort than because his help was really needed. Mad Jack and Kiku were doing fine on their own.
There was sudden silence. Smoke drifted. Kiku sneezed. A shell casing rolled off the step on which she stood and bounced down with a faint plink-plink-plink. Jack waited to see what she would do next. Now that she had a gun in her hand, she might decide to shoot her new owner and achieve total freedom. Although he was quite willing to let her walk away, Jack couldn't allow her to shoot Mad Jack, whom he needed, so he watched her closely.
Kiku returned Mad Jack's pistol. "Kuro-Jack-san, you did not seem surprised that they came."
"I wasn't. After you've been gambling for a while, you get to a point at which you can recognize who will lose gracefully and who won't."
"So you expected to be attacked," she went on.
"Yes." He cocked his head, as if wondering when she were going to get to whatever point she intended to make.
Gently, carefully, she touched his arm through the sling. "Even though you were injured, still you were willing to fight. You could have just let me go back to them. Kuro-Jack-san, you are very brave."
He bowed slightly, started to reply to her, and reconsidered, instead casting a triumphant glance at Samurai Jack. "I am a samurai!"
"We should probably leave now," Jack said.
"Yes, we should." Kiku pattered down the stairs and began rifling pockets. "Even though there is no law in these parts, so we are unlikely to be arrested, the other criminals in town may unite against us." She pulled Jack's dagger out of a dead fish-faced creature, wiped it on the creature's tunic, and handed it to Mad Jack, who passed it on to Jack. Jack sheathed it and hurried back into the room to leave a tip for the poor soul who would have to clean up.
When he came out, Kiku was triumphantly holding up a small piece of plastic. "Keystrip!"
They went to the front desk. The clerk had evidently already got the details of what happened. His voice shook as he asked, "Was everything all right?"
"Yes," Jack said. "We apologize for the disturbance."
The clerk looked nervously at Mad Jack's burning red eyes. "Don't worry about it."
Jack followed Mad Jack out, Kiku trotting along in the middle with her furoshiki. They covered her while she tried her keystrip on parked aerocars. The third one opened.
"I should drive; you two cover our retreat with the guns," Jack said, and they got into the back, and he got behind the driver's panel. He could see them in the rearview mirror. Kiku was smiling at Mad Jack, and he was preening. Jack hoped that at least one of them was also paying attention out the rear and side windows.
As it happened, the carload of criminals who pursued them were not interested in stealth. They opened fire even before they had passed the village limits. Kiku retracted the rear window. Mad Jack aimed carefully and killed the driver with one shot. The pursuing aerocar spiraled down and hit the ground in a crumple of metal.
"That wasn't so bad," Kiku said.
"No," Jack said, glancing in his rearview mirror again. "But those two carloads of bounty hunters coming up on us may present a problem."
"How can you tell they're bounty hunters?"
"I see enough of them; they all have that look about them."
"Why," she exclaimed, "you are not just a samurai called Jack--you are Samurai Jack! I had never heard it said you had a brother."
Jack wouldn't have tried to explain all that to her even if he hadn't been having to concentrate on his evasive maneuvers.
"Slow down a little," Mad Jack said. "We're a little out of pistol range."
"It is such an honor to meet you both," Kiku said with a shy giggle. Mad Jack let go with a barrage from his pistol. Jack could see holes in one of the cars, but there had been no kills. Kiku went on, "Why, Samurai Jack-san, I used to wish I could even catch a glimpse of you, much less meet you! Kozuke always said you were the greatest bugeisha he'd ever heard of." She fired and killed a bounty hunter in one of the passenger seats. "And Kozuke was right, as usual. I wish he could have met you, Jack-san, and you too, Kuro-Jack-san." More gunfire. One of the pursuing cars spiraled down in flames. "Kuro-Jack-san, what a great bugeisha you must be, to remain modestly in the background." Mad Jack somehow managed to preen and fire at the same time. "It is the greatest warrior who is the most humble." More preening. More shooting. "But there, I go on like a schoolgirl."
"Quite all right," Mad Jack said as they headed into a forested area. "Kiku-san, just in case we don't survive--"
"Of course we will survive. With two great warriors such as yourselves here, how could we not?"
Jack barely avoided hitting a tree.
"Well, just in case, I think I should tell you that you are a remarkably perceptive and observant woman."
"Thank you, Kuro-Jack-san."
"Jack!" Mad Jack said. "Speed up while she reloads me."
"If I speed up I'll probably hit a tree."
"And if you don't our brains will be all over this car! Move!"
The bounty hunters were indeed hot on their trail. Ahead of them was a huge pine tree. Jack opened the throttle and drove straight for it. At the last possible moment, he swerved straight up. The bounty hunters hit the tree head-on.
"See, I told you we'd survive," Kiku said calmly.
Jack circled back down and landed. The bounty hunters' car was a crumpled mess, not salvageable. Five bodies, thrown clear, lay sprawled among the trees--
No, four bodies. One bounty hunter stirred, and sat up on his elbow as the samurai and the maiko got out of their own aerocar. Mad Jack walked over to the live bounty hunter, pistol ready.
"I surrender!" the bounty hunter said.
"We lack the manpower to take prisoners," Samurai Jack advised him. "Sorry."
"Even if we did have the manpower, to whom would we turn in our prisoners?" Busy searching bodies, Kiku didn't even look up as she spoke. "We have nothing to do with Aku. Your predicament is your own fault. If you hadn't been trying to capture us and turn us over to Aku, you would not be here now."
Jack turned to prying open the bounty hunters' trunk, not wanting to converse with the man any more. It was bad enough to make money by selling people to Aku, but then to beg mercy from one's prospective victims...Disgusting.
After their close call, he was still a little jumpy, and his head whipped around at a sudden noise, but it was only Mad Jack cocking the pistol.
"My leg's broken!" the bounty hunter said, as if that would have made some difference to him had positions been reversed.
"It does look that way," Mad Jack agreed, and killed him.
Birds chirped. Pine needles rustled in a gentle breeze. Jack went through the bounty hunters' trunk. No cold-weather gear, but... "Gunners! This is your lucky day! Look at all this two-eighteen ammunition. Boxes and boxes of it."
"Good," Mad Jack said. "While I regain the use of my arm, we can go deep, deep into the forest, where no one will hear us, and I can start you two on shooting practice.--Anything else?"
"Not really," Jack said. "Clothes...a couple of extra pairs of shoes, that don't look as if they'd fit any of us...their lunch..."
"We might eat that," Kiku said. "What were they having?"
Jack opened the bag and sniffed. His stomach turned. "Haggis."
"What?" Kiku said.
"What?" Mad Jack said.
"What is haggis?" Kiku asked.
"You don't want to know," Samurai Jack said.
**********************************************************************
During the five weeks it took for Mad Jack to regain mobility in his arm, Samurai Jack became an excellent pistol shot. He also became very friendly with Kiku. He grew to like and respect her tremendously, and wished there were some way he could warn her away from Mad Jack. She was far too fond of the double, who was not fit to fold her obi (not that she ever let either of them touch it, whether to fold it, or unfold it, or help tie it; she was even more fussy about it than Mad Jack was about his underwear).
Very early on the morning of November 22, Kiku took the car and went into Akuville with a shopping list, so that the wanted samurai and his twin could stay hidden in the forest. She had a car, a gun, and plenty of money, but by now neither of them had the slightest doubt that she would return. As the sky brightened, Jack watched Mad Jack run through practice kata exercises with his sword, looking carefully for signs of lingering stiffness that might be fatal in combat.
"You are ready," he said when Mad Jack finished, and then he added regretfully, "I shall miss Kiku."
Mad Jack sheathed his sword and said nothing.
"You must send her away," Jack said firmly. "It would be unfair to her to take her along."
"I said I would, and I will!" Mad Jack snapped, and Jack left it at that.
By lunchtime Kiku was back with all the cold-weather gear they had requested. Jack noticed she had also bought some for herself, and he felt even worse. At dusk the car landed in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, and the three of them had dinner over a campfire. Jack found the meal reminiscent of what the monks had called "the Last Supper."
Kiku looked up at a towering peak that pierced the round ball of the moon. "Why have you come to these mountains so late in the year, o-samurai? What will we do here?"
They glanced at each other. Then Mad Jack said, "We must go up, where the air is too thin and the peaks too high and the trails too narrow to fly the car. We have no further need of it. You take it, Kiku-san. And keep the remaining money as well. I give you your freedom. You may go wherever you like."
She thanked him effusively, bowing many times, but she showed no signs of leaving.
"No point in your sleeping out here in the cold," Mad Jack said. "Feel free to leave now."
"I'm not leaving," Kiku said. "You said I could go wherever I liked. I would like to go where you go."
"That is the one place you cannot go, Kiku-sama," Jack said gently. "Goodbye and may the gods and your ancestors watch over you."
"I do not intend to leave you, o-samurai."
"We aren't giving you a choice," Mad Jack said. "Go!"
"Have I displeased you, Kuro-Jack-san?"
"No! No, you have not. Nonetheless, you are dismissed. I have no further need of you." There was a strange choked note in the rasping voice.
Hurt, bewildered, Kiku looked from one to the other.
"Oh, hell," Jack said. "Look, Kiku-sama. You are not being sent away because of anything you have done or not done. We are going into the Pit of Hate to kill Aku. That is why your company is no longer wanted."
She stared at him, wide-eyed. "You intend to enter the Pit?"
"And come out, gods willing."
"Then you will certainly need all the help you can get," Kiku said briskly. "I volunteer."
"No," Jack said firmly. "Listen to me, Kiku-sama. You have the heart of a warrior, but you have not had sufficient training. We'll be lucky if we survive, and we are experienced samurai. To take you along would be to murder our dear friend. We will not do it."
"In short," Mad Jack said, "go away."
"But--"
"Go away!"
She went, in tears.
Jack watched her drive away and felt like crying himself. He consoled himself with the thought that at least she was now safely away from Mad Jack, that she was much better off than she had been when he'd met her.
"Watch out for her doubling back to follow us," Mad Jack said morosely.
"If she does we will have to disable the car and take her back down the mountain. I don't think she could climb it by herself."
"Want to bet?" Mad Jack said, even more morosely. The campfire flames danced in his red eyes. "Well, we can't climb if we don't get any sleep."
They set off at dawn. There was no sign of pursuit from Kiku, which was a relief to Jack; he would have hated to have her encounter the belligerent goat-people, or any of the mountain's other dangers, on his account. At least this time the mountain and its denizens seemed to be in a good mood. He and his companion made excellent progress all day and passed a peaceful night in camp halfway up. In the morning they ate quickly and set out again. They were now coming close to where Jack had had the run-in with the goat-people when he climbed this mountain previously, so he wasn't surprised to encounter a horned lookout. Knowing it probably wouldn't do any good, he still tried courtesy first. "Goat man! We intend to harm no one; we have taken care to damage nothing. Please let us pass." He dodged as the creature charged.
Mad Jack stepped forward. "Hey! Goat! Remember me?"
The goat-man took one look at him and ran away bleating. Mad Jack smiled.
On Tuesday morning they were near the summit, and Mad Jack was checking each cleft in the cliffs very carefully. Finally they came to a steep step made of crumbling rock. Mad Jack stood on Jack's shoulders, peeked over the ledge, and scrambled up. "This is it! This is the door!"