“Then the other one said, ‘Except for the time the load took out one of the Stevens’ steers.’ They all laughed. They had a barbecue.”
Bentham frowned. “Thursday morning.”
“Yeah. An hour before dawn. They don’t want anyone to see it drop but they want the light to look for it. Bugs.”
“Which deputies go out to the drop?”
“All of them. They talked about a time they only sent two and they couldn’t find the package. They were afraid a ranch hand would find it first. Now they all go, to do a fast wide sweep.” He shook his head. “They talked a lot. Typical meth users.”
Bentham nodded. “Talkative, yes, but also paranoid. It was dangerous!”
Kimble didn’t deny it.
Bentham questioned him for another half hour, getting every detail. Finally he settled back on his heels. “Well, we’ll watch them do the pickup and we’ll watch them hand it over to Dashefsky. As he hands off to his distributors, we’ll take them. Then we’ll take Dashefsky and the deputies. I don’t know if we can prosecute the rape, dammit. Maybe we can get one of them to plea deal, to rat him out, otherwise…” Bentham shrugged.
Lujan snorted, “Don’t be so sure. The Sisters have SOEC kits and have been trained in their use.”
Bentham said, “Oh, real-ly?” He smiled, but it was all teeth and it made Kimble cold to see it.
Kimble’s anger had faded to depression. “What does that mean?”
Lujan explained. “Sexual Offense Evidence Collection kit. Means we have a good chance of getting him on the rape, too. We’ll send it outside for DNA matching with a sample taken from Pritts.”
“What kind of sample?”
“Usually a mouth swab. Why?”
Kimble shrugged. “The bigger the sample the better, right? I suggest you send a tissue sample. A large tissue sample.” He gestured down.
“We can’t cut parts off of him, Kimble,” Captain Bentham said.
“That’s a great pity.”
* * *
SINCE Captain Bentham was coordinating his trap for the deputies and their associates, as well as liaising with the DEA to identify the outside-the-territory members of the chain, it was Lujan who delivered Kimble back to Perro Frio, dropping him on the road between the dojo and the village.
“Didn’t know what to think,” Lujan said, “when the cap’n brought you in, but you done good, kid. Now I understand why he was so impressed.”
Kimble’s jaw dropped open. “He sure hides it well!”
Lujan shook his head. “I meant it. Work with you anytime.” He turned his team north for the capital and Kimble walked south with his bedroll.
He arrived just as evening class began. He slipped back into his room, changed into practice clothes, and bowed in.
Later, Ruth asked him, “Did you eat?”
“A bit—dried fruit and jerky.”
“I baked today. Come on.”
She fed him bread and honey and tea. He was dreading her questions but she didn’t ask any, cleaning the counter and then resuming work on a half-finished basket.
After a while he began talking. He told her about Pritts and the deputies and the rape of Francesca Cruz and the drug drops. He didn’t tell her about hiding on the roof to eavesdrop.
When he’d stopped talking she put the finished basket aside and said, “Do you think you should have gone?”
He’d been wrestling with that all the way from Parsons. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Pretty awful people,” she said.
He nodded. “Yeah. Makes Sandy Williams look like a saint.”
She grimaced. “Wouldn’t go that far. I still have my doubts, but if it keeps any more girls from being assaulted—”
“Raped,” said Kimble emphatically. “It’s rape!”
She blinked then nodded. “Yes. Rape. No euphemisms, right?”
“I didn’t want to know this. I didn’t want to. Not so up close.”
“Oh, Kimble.” She exhaled. “I can’t take it away. You can’t un-know it.”
“I used to think innocence was just not doing bad things. That it was just being innocent of wrongdoing. But it’s not that simple, is it?”
“No,” she said. “It’s not. We all have to learn it at some point in our lives. It’s never easy.”
“Yes, Sensei.”
9
Keiko, Keiko, Keiko
It was a different Kimble who came back to the two-room schoolhouse that September. He was quieter, burning through his math and science workbooks for the entire year before the end of October. Taken by surprise, Mrs. Sodaberg had to shoot an unscheduled order off to the capital for the next workbooks in the series. In the interim, she lent Kimble to Mrs. Sedaris to help with the elementary students in the other schoolroom.
One day, when the upper form was off on a field trip to the river bottom, Charlotte Ann Johnson fell in class and cut her forehead on the corner of a desk. Mrs. Sedaris left Kimble in charge as she hustled Charlotte to the village medical office so Marisol Aragon could glue the wound back together.
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“Excuse me?” said Kimble looking up from his novel.
Johnny Hennessey, a large boy who had failed to move out of elementary the year before, had gotten up from his desk and was glaring across the room at Kimble. It was not a secret that his problems were both academic and behavioral.
“Did you need some help with your math, Johnny?”
“You can’t boss us around, you’re not the teacher.”
After Mrs. Sedaris and Charlotte Ann had left the schoolroom, the only thing he’d said was, “Do whatever Mrs. Sedaris assigned.” Kimble raised his eyebrows and said, “Okay. I’m not the boss of you.” He looked back down at his book. That would probably have been it, but several of the younger kids giggled.
Johnny glared around then said, “You’re scared, aren’t you. You’re yellow.” He took two steps up the aisle. “I knew that crap was phony about your martial arts stuff.”
Kimble sighed and closed the book, his finger marking the space. “Johnny, you could be finishing your assignment. And so could everyone else, you know?”
“Yeah,” said Pete Romero, a kid on the front row. “Some of us are ready to move to the upper form.”
Pete was one of the smartest kids in the elementary room, but saying that when Johnny Hennessey, who outweighed Pete by fifty pounds, was standing right beside him was not smart.
Johnny dove at Pete, knocking over the desk and spilling both boys to the floor, Johnny on top. He raised a fist to smack Pete and suddenly the world changed.
Pete was no longer under him but off to one side, cradling a bruised elbow. Johnny could see that because his head was facing that way and only that way because his cheek was grinding into the floor and his arm and shoulder were positioned so that he couldn’t look in any other direction. Or move. Not without a shooting pain from his wrist to his spine.
“Shhh,” Kimble said. “You really shouldn’t struggle. You could hurt yourself. Oh, damn. You made me lose my place.”
By the time Mrs. Sedaris returned with Charlotte Ann, Johnny and Pete were back in their seats and, if not productive, at least quiet.
Later that week, Buck Hennessey came in to complain about upper form students being allowed to manhandle the elementary students. He glared around the schoolyard and demanded which of the assembled children was the brutal bully, Kim Monroe.
Kimble heard this and stepped forward, standing across from Johnny, who was a full head taller than him and fifty pounds heavier.
Mr. Hennessey complained a bit more but not quite so enthusiastically. Regretfully, Mrs. Sedaris sent Kimble back to the upper forms. Johnny Hennessey avoided Kimble in the schoolyard and Pete Romero started attending the kids classes at the dojo.
* * *
KAREN Sensei and Athena were the first to arrive for the dojo’s grand opening, but they were by no means the last. They came two days early, this time
renting horses and coming without a guide.
“We’re quite the intrepid explorers,” Athena said.
The horses, as prearranged, were boarded at the Kenney’s ranch. Kimble gave up his room again, but this time to Athena and Karen. There were so many people coming that they expected to double up in each of the four deshi rooms, fill the practice area with sleeping bags, and overflow into some of the local students’ homes.
Kimble’s old bed in the cottage, the one Karen had used on her last visit, was reserved for Tamada Shihan. Kimble was cleaning the room in preparation when he overhead Karen and Ruth talking.
“He’s actually coming?” Ruth said.
Karen answered emphatically, “Absolutely!”
“It’s so far.”
Karen nodded again. “He insisted. He said, ‘If I can still walk up Mount Fuji every year, I can walk a few kilometers to Ruth-chan’s new dojo.’”
“He hasn’t been out of Japan since the opening of our old dojo.”
Karen nodded. “True.” She grinned wickedly. “I heard that Porter tried to get him to come for the twenty-fifth anniversary but Tamada refused.”
Ruth blinked. “Real-ly.”
Karen nodded. “Porter told me at summer camp, but he shrugged it off. Said it was a scheduling conflict. Tamada’s dojo cho told me differently when I saw him in California. Tamada won’t accept Porter’s phone calls—he’s ‘unavailable’ to Porter until further notice. He must be furious about the adultery.”
Ruth shook her head. “Close as we were, Sensei wouldn’t act that way because of mere adultery. It was Porter sleeping with his own student. That, to Sensei, would be unforgivable.”
The rest of the guests had caravanned together, crossing into the territory at Aztec and taking four days to make it into Perro Frio on horseback and wagon. Tamada Sensei walked most of the way, carrying a bamboo walking stick, and, as the rest of the party’s aches and pains increased, he leaned on it less and less. As their morning groans increased, his smile broadened and his step lightened and he led the way up to Ruth’s cottage, the bamboo balanced jauntily over his shoulder.
Ruth ran forward and dropped to her knees before him. He bowed back and drew her to her feet, his face all folds and tears.
Kimble worked like a demon, fetching, carrying, serving, answering questions, and helping people unaccustomed to territory ways.
On the last day of the seminar, half of Perro Frio and a scattering from other nearby villages came to the opening ceremony and watched a demonstration of techniques by all the attending instructors. At the end, Ruth demonstrated iaido, drawing and cutting, with the milky white ceramic blade, then doing the same techniques again with wooden bokken as Kimble attacked with the same. When she was done, Tamada Sensei promoted her, on the spot, to Rokudan, sixth-degree black belt.
Kimble was sitting close and he heard him say to Ruth, “The instructor’s quality is manifest in the student.”
Ruth bowed very low and said, “My instructor is of the highest quality.”
Tamada Sensei threw back his head and laughed. “I wasn’t talking about your instructor!” He pointed at Kimble, “I was talking about his!” He started to turn and then said directly to Kimble, “What rank?”
Kimble was confused. “Excuse me, Sensei?”
“No rank, Sensei,” said Ruth. “Just keiko.” Practice.
“Keiko, keiko, keiko,” said Tamada Sensei. “Good. Nonetheless, with your instructor’s permission, you are promoted to nidan.”
Ruth bowed and Kimble followed her lead. “Domo arigato gozaimashita, Sensei.”
After class ended Athena led several aikidoists over and surrounded him.
“What?” he said, wary.
“We normally do it at shodan, but you skipped that. Relax.”
They made him lie back, supporting him with their arms, then, on the count of three, threw him as high as the rafters, so high, he had time to wonder if they were going to catch him.
They did.
As the audience trailed out of the dojo he saw a familiar set of shoulders in the crowd. He watched and saw the man glance back over his shoulder, revealing the beaky nose and bushy eyebrows. Captain Bentham saw Kimble watching, touched his finger to his forehead, and walked on.
“Did I see Jeremy?” Ruth asked.
Kimble nodded.
“Too bad he didn’t stay. It was nice of him to come.”
“Yes, Sensei.”
PART II
“When he comes to the Great Game he must go alone—alone, and at peril of his head. Then, if he spits, or sneezes, or sits down other than as the people do whom he watches, he may be slain. Why hinder him now? Remember how the Persians say: The jackal that lives in the wilds of Mazanderan can only be caught by the hounds of Mazanderan.”
—RUDYARD KIPLING, Kim, Chapter 7
10
Lessons
Lujan drove his peddler’s wagon into the dojo yard and said, “Hey, kid. You want to buy some candy? I’ve got all sorts of different candy.”
Ruth, standing beside Kimble, stiffened but Kimble put his hand on her arm. “It’s Lujan,” he said quietly. “The agent I worked with in Parsons.”
She breathed out. “Ah. He’s joking?”
“Yes. He’s giving me back some of my own sass.”
She turned back to Lujan. “Tea, Mr. Lujan?”
“Why thank you, Ms. Monroe. I’d take it kindly.”
She turned back to the cottage. “See if he has some lamp oil. We’re low.”
Kimble invited Lujan to stay the night or for supper, but the man shook his head. “In a hurry. Lamp oil? Take that plastic drum off the back. The whole thing. It’s not opened yet and I’ll travel faster for it.”
“If you’re in such a hurry, why’d you stop?”
“Pritts broke out of his own jail after the trial, the night before the troop arrived to transport him north to the federal pen in Colorado.”
The blood drained from Kimble’s face. “He got away?”
“Someone helped. The city appointed new deputies but one of them is missing. Oh, and two of them are dead.”
“Pritts do it?”
“Or the missing deputy. Or both.”
“Are you taking the word to the capital?”
Lujan tilted his head and looked at him.
Kimble said, “Right, heliograph. So what is your hurry?”
“Heading south. I’ve seen him close up and personal, like you. Possible he’ll try for Mexico. I’m gonna haunt the crossings, hang with the Coyotes. The service will airdrop posters to the legitimate crossings but it’ll take a couple of weeks to widely distribute his picture.”
“You need me to go with you?” Kimble felt a fierce need to do something.
“Ha! Captain said you’d offer but he just wanted you to know so you could keep your eyes open around here. Period.” Lujan leaned closer. “Ever since he saw the demo at your dojo’s grand opening, I think he’s a little scared of your teacher.”
Distractedly, Kimble said, “Wise man.”
Lujan stayed long enough to drink his tea. As he prepared to drive on he spotted the horno. “You bake? I’ve got two twenty-five-pound bags of flour. Would help with the weight.”
He left them on the ground and drove off when Ruth stepped into the cottage to get her purse.
“He’s in a terrible rush,” Kimble said when she came back out. “I don’t think he expected to be paid.” He licked his lips, then told her about the jailbreak.
She eyed him intently. “You’re furious.”
Kimble blinked. “Oh. That’s what that is.” He knew he felt something, but until she named it he just knew that his vision had narrowed and his jaw ached from clenching his teeth.
“Yes, Sensei. Furious.”
* * *
HE stayed late the next day at school, working through a tricky algebra proof with Mrs. Sodaberg. It was extra credit but he enjoyed figuring it out. Mrs. Sodaberg guided him lightly, mostly with
questions, until it was solved.
He was taking the back path from the school toward the country road south when he heard voices and then a yell. “No! Johnny, stop it! NO!”
He followed the voices, bursting through the bushes into a small clearing. Two half-dressed figures, Johnny Hennessey and Luanne Tuscano, one of the younger upper-form students, struggled on a blanket. Johnny was shirtless and his pants were partway down. Luanne’s dress top was down around her ribs, and her hem was up, and Johnnie was trying to pull her panties down past her knees.
Kimble took two long strides and kicked him in the side of the head.
“What the hell!” screamed Luanne. She was scrambling to cover her breasts while pulling her panties up.
Johnny fell over and lay unmoving.
“Why’d you do that? Are you insane?”
“He was raping you!”
“You killed him!”
For a dreadful instant, Kimble thought she might be right. He crouched over Johnny and checked the pulse at his throat. It beat steadily but his eyes were half open and the side of his head was swelling where Kimble had kicked him.
“Christ. Sit here with him. Make sure he doesn’t swallow his tongue. I’m going after Miss Aragon.”
When he returned with Mrs. Sodaberg and the nurse, Luanne was fully dressed. What’s more, even though he was still unconscious, Johnny was also dressed and the blanket had disappeared.
Johnny woke up while they were carrying him into the village. He couldn’t tell what day of the week it was or who was president. “Concussion,” said Marisol.
“Not necessarily,” muttered Mrs. Sodaberg.
Kimble had already told Mrs. Sodaberg and the nurse what had happened as he guided them back to the clearing. Luanne told a completely different story.