Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [18]
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, thinking she was the most difficult woman in the world to please. “What gratitude!” he said to himself, taking the bitter tea that Akemi had poured for him and squatting down on his haunches.
Okō smiled wanly, envying the young, who know not the ways of the world. “Matahachi,” she said wearily, “you don’t seem to understand. Temma had hundreds of followers.”
“Of course he did. Crooks like him always do. We’re not afraid of the kind of people who follow the likes of him. If we could kill him, why should we be afraid of his underlings? If they try to get at us, Takezō and I will just—”
“—will just do nothing!” interrupted Okō.
Matahachi pulled back his shoulders and said, “Who says so? Bring on as many of them as you like! They’re nothing but a bunch of worms. Or do you think Takezō and I are cowards, that we’re just going to slither away on our bellies in retreat? What do you take us for?”
“You’re not cowards, but you are childish! Even to me. Temma has a younger brother named Tsujikaze Kōhei, and if he comes after you, the two of you rolled into one wouldn’t have a chance!”
This was not the kind of talk Matahachi especially liked to hear, but as she went on, he started thinking that maybe she had a point. Tsujikaze Kōhei apparently had a large band of followers around Yasugawa in Kiso, and not only that: he was expert in the martial arts and unusually adept at catching people off their guard. So far, no one Kōhei had publicly announced he would kill had lived out his normal life. To Matahachi’s way of thinking, it was one thing if a person attacked you in the open. It was quite another thing if he snuck up on you when you were fast asleep.
“That’s a weak point with me,” he admitted. “I sleep like a log.”
As he sat holding his jaw and thinking, Okō came to the conclusion that there was nothing to do but abandon the house and their present way of life and go somewhere far away. She asked Matahachi what he and Takezō would do.
“I’ll talk it over with him,” replied Matahachi. “Wonder where he’s gone off to?”
He walked outside and looked around, but Takezō was nowhere in sight. After a time he shaded his eyes, looked off into the distance and spotted Takezō riding around in the foothills, bareback on the stray horse that had woken them with his neighing.
“He doesn’t have a care in the world,” Matahachi said to himself, gruffly envious. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouted, “Hey, you! Come home! We’ve got to talk!”
A little while later they lay in the grass together, chewing on stalks of grass, discussing what they should do next.
Matahachi said, “Then you think we should head home?”
“Yes, I do. We can’t stay with these two women forever.”
“No, I guess not.”
“I don’t like women.” Takezō was sure of that at least.
“All right. Let’s go, then.”
Matahachi rolled over and looked up at the sky. “Now that we’ve made up our minds, I want to get moving. I suddenly realized how much I miss Otsū, how much I want to see her. Look up there! There’s a cloud that looks just like her profile. See! That part’s just like her hair after she’s washed it.” Matahachi was kicking his heels into the ground and pointing to the sky.
Takezō’s eyes followed the retreating form of the horse he had just set free. Like many of the vagabonds who live in the fields, stray horses seemed to him to be good-natured things. When you’re through with them, they ask for nothing; they just go off quietly somewhere by themselves.
From the house Akemi summoned them to dinner. They stood up. “Race you!” cried Takezō.
“You’re on!” countered Matahachi.
Akemi clapped her hands with delight as the two of them sped neck and neck through the tall grass, leaving a thick trail of dust in their wake.
After dinner, Akemi grew pensive. She had just learned that the two men had decided to go back to their homes. It had been fun having them in the house, and she wanted it to go on forever.
“You silly thing!” chided her mother. “Why are you moping