Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [220]
Baiken’s back was turned to the man, his eyes fastened on Otsū, who crouched before him, seemingly trapped by his fierce glare. “Ho!” he roared. “All three of you come down here.”
“Why?”
“Get down here, fast!”
“If we waste time, Musashi’ll beat us to Yasugawa.”
“Never mind that!”
The three men were among those who had been engaged in the fruitless search the night before. Used to making their way through the mountains, they stormed down the incline with the speed of so many boars. As they reached the ledge where Baiken was standing, they caught sight of Otsū. Their leader rapidly explained the situation to them.
“All right now, tie her up and bring her along,” said Baiken, before darting off through the woods.
They tied her up, but they couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. She lay helpless on the ground, face turned to the side; they stole embarrassed looks at her pale profile.
Baiken was already in Kaga Valley. He stopped, looked back at the cliff and shouted, “We’ll meet in Yasugawa. I’ll take a shortcut, but you stay on the highway. And keep your eyes peeled.”
“Yes, sir!” they chorused back.
Baiken, running between the rocks like a mountain goat, was soon out of sight.
Jōtarō was hurtling down the highroad. Despite her age, the horse was so maddened there was no stopping her with a mere rope, even if Jōtarō had known how to go about it. The raw wound burning like a torch, she sped blindly ahead, up hill, down dale, through villages.
It was only through sheer luck that Jōtarō avoided being thrown off. “Watch out! Watch out! Watch out!” he screamed repeatedly. The words had become a litany.
No longer able to stay on by clinging to the mane, he had his arms locked tightly around the horse’s neck. His eyes were closed.
When the beast’s rump rose in the air, so did Jōtarō’s. As it became increasingly apparent that his shouts were not working, his pleas gradually gave way to a distressed wail. When he had begged Otsū to let him ride a horse just once, he had been thinking how grand it would be to go galloping about at rill on a splendid steed, but after a few minutes of this hair-raising ride, he had had his fill.
Jōtarō hoped that someone—anyone—would bravely volunteer to seize the flying rope and bring the horse to a halt. In this he was overoptimistic, for neither travelers nor villagers wanted to risk being hurt in an affair that was no concern of theirs. Far from helping, everyone made for the safety of the roadside and shouted abuse at what appeared to them to be an irresponsible horseman.
In no time he’d passed the village of Mikumo and reached the inn town of Natsumi. If he had been an expert rider in perfect control of his mount, he could have shaded his eyes and calmly looked out over the beautiful mountains and valleys of Iga—the peaks of Nunobiki, the Yokota River and, in the distance, the mirror-like waters of Lake Biwa.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” The words of his litany had changed; his tone was more distraught. As they started down Kōji Hill, his cry abruptly changed again. “Help!” he screamed.
The horse charged on down the precipitous incline, Jōtarō bouncing like a ball on her back.
About a third of the way down, a large oak projected from a cliff on the left, one of its smaller branches extending across the road. When Jōtarō felt the leaves against his face, he grabbed with both hands, believing the gods had heard his prayer and caused the limb to stretch out before him. Perhaps he was right; he jumped like a frog, and the next instant he was hanging in the air, his hands firmly wrapped around the branch above his head. The horse went out from under him, moving a little faster now that she was rider-less.
It was no more than a ten-foot drop to the ground, but Jōtarō could not bring himself to release his grip. In his badly shaken condition, he saw the short distance to the ground as a yawning abyss and hung onto the branch for dear life, crossing his legs over it, readjusting his aching hands,