Chapter 1 – Gozaemon
In the still, shimmering heat, the old man struggled along the dusty trail winding up the rocky hillside with his small burden, too familiar with the way to stumble, too long in this world to hurry.
Yoshi's right, I'm getting too old for this.
Every morning for a week, he'd trekked up to the caves in the hills above the village with a carefully packed sack: a baked sweet potato, two rice balls, a boiled egg, a couple of pieces of jerky.
Oh, yes. And the bandages.
A glorious day, full of birdsong, bright sunshine, robin's-egg blue sky, and a crisp, heart-lifting breeze that rustled the backyard tree and even reached a finger down into the well to stir its limpid surface. Chickens scratched contentedly at god-knows-what in the yard, and the neighbor's damned dog sunned himself in a corner of the garden, long ago given up even pretending to chase them.
What do you know—another spring in my own skin.
Gozaemon stood from his weeding and stretched his creaking back, stretched his strong, sinewy arms way above his head up into that blue breeze. The resulting cracks and pops startled the little bird perched on a nearby fencepost, and it fluttered up to land unsteadily on a neighboring section. This spring, his neighbors had sent their young boy around to offer to help the ancient one plant his garden, but Gozaemon considered this exertion part of why he was still around. Somehow, it seemed to him like a kind of "entry test" to life: pass it, and he qualified for another year; fail, and… Well, he'd always passed, hadn't he?
His old heart beat light and quick today. Today would be special. Today, his young friend—he could almost hear Yoshi's guffaw at the epithet "young"—was due to arrive. And, according to last week's letter, planned to stay for three or four days. This long-standing friendship was another of life's real pleasures for him.
Yoshi had actually been his son's friend—indeed, his son's best friend—but when The City had called, and his son had answered its siren song and moved his entire family there, so far away and so long ago, the abandoned widower and the abandoned friend found not only comfort in each other's company, but a true meeting of spirits. Gozaemon's naturally youthful mind and Yoshi's surprisingly precocious one had fallen into easy step with each other and simply never parted company. Even when Yoshi's trade put him on the road, as it did almost continually these days, the connection between the two remained strong and alive, like a ropy vine whose stringy tendrils creep through every barrier and along every path, tough enough to withstand drought, neglect, and treading feet.
They shared memories over nightly pots of tea at first, later with sake and a pipe. They recited the old tales to each other, and created new ones, some silly, some heartbreaking, some sobering. As the times moved, insistently intruding on even their isolated hamlet, they puzzled over the promises and failures of the new era; they wondered what the future held for them, for their village, for their country.
On the road, Yoshi saw too many—too many and ever more—drifters, forsaken and forgotten by the new order, bereft of purpose and place, new strangers to hope and opportunity. He brought these stories back to his friend, and together, their hearts ached for these cast aside ones, and burned at the heartlessness of a society willing to waste so many souls. Their shared unease with the burgeoning age and the rips and tears they saw in its social web sparked something in each of them.
One day, Yoshi had had enough. He rounded a curve and almost stumbled over a particularly pitiful specimen, huddled among a cluster of boulders by the roadside. The man could barely lift his head enough to meet Yoshi's eyes, then slumped back against the rocks. Something in Yoshi burst, and he froze in his tracks.
This one, at least, will not die for my inaction!
Late the next morning he showed up at Gozaemon's garden leading a scraggly, starving, puzzled fellow, and simply handed him over. Wordlessly, the other half of the new, intuitively-formed team took him in, fed him and cleaned him up. When a neighbor planned a trip to visit relatives, relatives who owned a thriving shoe shop in a nearby town, Gozaemon called in a favor, and soon the rehabilitated wanderer found himself busy, fed, paid, and once again respectable.
It became a happy habit for them both.
Everyone, even Yoshi, had tried to discourage him from rambling by himself in the rocky hills. He would fall and break a fragile bone and be stranded; he would suffer a stroke and lie there, alone and suffering, long before anyone would miss and search for him. Finally, in their frustration at his stubbornness, they became ridiculously insulting: he would forget his way home and his chickens would break out and run amok and his neglected garden would attract pests and his hut would burn down and this would all be a bother to the rest of the village.
He sat silently under the weight of the scoldings, smoking his pipe, eyes cast to the ground before him, and they'd finally given up, exasperated. After a few days, other scandals captured their attention, and he resumed his solitary roaming in peace. They pretended not to notice.
Today, his ramble took a different turn.
Today, late in spring, the air carried the first promise of the heat of summer. Gozaemon felt particularly energetic, invigorated by the anticipation of Yoshi's arrival that evening.
So energetic, in fact, that he decided to visit His Spot again.
There was a high meadow that always held traces of snow on its gentle slope late into the season, later than anywhere else around, late enough that the strong early summer sun had already coaxed shoots of green out of every limb and stem and stalk. He found something transporting about all this vibrant verdancy bursting through the still-pristine islands of snow under the trees, shouldering aside the doomed icy glaze huddled in the cracks of boulders. Maybe it reminded him that life always finds a way. Maybe it encouraged his own yearly renewal.
Maybe he just liked the pretty colors.
And no one else ever comes here—this place blooms just for me.
He plopped himself down heavily on his favorite boulder overlooking his meadow—Whew! That climb does get steeper every year—and mopped his brow, then stuffed the damp rag back into the front of his shirt. He felt his breathing slow, and listened to his heart's pounding ease in his ears. As his body's own noises lessened, the meadow's peaceful symphony asserted itself: the hum of insects, busy with their endless duties; dueling birdsong; the breeze rustling leaf and blade, and burbling through crevices in the rocks.
The aroma of hot grass and eager flower flowed into his nostrils, the very smell of life itself, and warmed his insides like no bowl of sake ever could.
What is that?
An uneasy, rhythmic rasp, that didn't belong, clashed with the calm. He raised his head, turning it this way and that to triangulate on the source. It was vague, and seemed to be filtered somehow. He stood, listening hard, then took a few hesitant steps to his left before halting and turning confidently back to where he'd been sitting. And beyond, behind.
He had it.
He himself had taken refuge in that sheltering cave in summer storms past; napped there on hot autumn afternoons; actually concealed himself there once, feeling very much five years old and not a little silly, when the village had decided to come and fetch him home for his own good. So he knew perfectly well that any creature with a sufficiently firm desire for privacy and even a modicum of sense, which explained why his neighbors had failed, would both find and claim it.
He bent and entered, pushing aside the screening vines. He hadn't been in here in quite some time, and, as he stood up straight, the dank aroma raised pleasant memories for him. His eyes needed time to adjust to the faint light, and his ears needed time to pinpoint the sound's source.
Oh, it's way back there…
The pitiful creature languishing in the cave didn't need new bandages every day, but Gozaemon always brought fresh ones with him, just in case, along with the provisions.
And his questions, which remained, so far, almost completely unanswered. It was curious: this man, this nightmarishly damaged man had, in spite of his physical frailty, directed by sheer force of will how his recovery was to be managed. Gozaemon had been surprised by the irresistibility of the man's determination, of his strength of character and resolution of decision. Gozaemon, who always knew his own mind and went his own way and was ruled by no one, found himself listening and obeying and fetching, all according to this extraordinary man's orders.
Well, he seems to know what he needs. And I like a man who steers his own ship…
He'd been shocked, really shocked by the man's condition. The straitened, labored breathing, the shallowly heaving chest, the feverish heat radiating off the whole body; Gozaemon could hardly believe the man was alive, and he was one who had seen bodies in the worst kinds of sickness and damage. He'd knelt down by the prostrate, groaning form, and gently turned him over onto his back, dimly registering the unnatural feel of the man's clothing.
What is he wearing? Nothing but leather? In this heat?
The man was not unconscious, and in the dim light Gozaemon could just barely see his eyes open to slits and his mouth move, mumbling something unintelligible.
"You just be quiet, my friend. Let me get you some water first, and then we'll see what we can do for you."
He crawled back out to his pack and retrieved his skin bag of water. Once back in the cave, he gently lifted the man's head to help him drink. He almost dropped it again.
He could distinctly feel the hole in the back of the skull, sticky with dried blood, the edges crisp and crumbly, and of a size that told him this was where the bullet had exited.
Shot in the head… Impossible!
Focusing on immediate needs, he put the spout of the bag near the man's lips and allowed a few drops to leak out. The almost animal response nearly broke his heart—this poor thing was truly at death's door.
I can't imagine how he's hanging on.
"Now take it easy. You're in bad shape, and we need to be careful with you, okay?"
In his hand, the man's head nodded in slow assent.
"I'm going to stay with you long enough to make sure you have enough water, then I'm going to leave…"
The fingers of the hand resting against Gozaemon's calf clutched feebly at his pants leg, and the rasping took on an uneven, forced quality.
"Don't worry. I'm just going back to my house to get some salve and bandages. And, I think, a little broth. You can probably handle that, and the salt and protein will do you a world of good."
The desperate grip eased, and Gozaemon could feel the man relax again.
"Here, try to take a little more water…"
Review responses: omasuoniwabanshi: Oh, I'm sure you know who this is! I'm so glad you are enjoying it so far! Kamakiri Muteki: Oh, goody—a new reader! Welcome, and thanks so much for reading and reviewing! Skenshingumi: You "saved them up", eh? grin I do that, too. Thanks for picking up on that "pretty colors" line; I, too, liked the "deflating" effect after all that solemn "wonderfulness". Yes, I think that this sad era in Japanese history has been echoed in other eras, other times, other countries. You'd think we'd learn a thing, wouldn't you?