Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [400]
“What are you up to?”
The shout came from below, but the man jerked his head upward in astonishment. Musashi, having anticipated his treacherous move, had already jumped from the log and lit as lightly as a wagtail on a large rock. His startled attacker dropped the log into the stream. Before the curtain of flying water had fallen back to earth, Musashi had jumped back onto the bank, sword unsheathed, and cut his assailant down. It all happened so quickly that the man did not even see Musashi draw.
The corpse wriggled for a moment or two before subsiding into stillness. Musashi did not deign to give it a glance. He had already taken a new stance in preparation for the next attack, for he was sure there would be one. As he steeled himself for it, his hair stood up like an eagle’s crown feathers.
A short silence ensued, followed by a boom loud enough to split the gorge asunder. The gunshot seemed to have come from somewhere on the other side. Musashi dodged, and the well-aimed slug hissed through the space he had been occupying, burying itself in the embankment behind him. Falling as though wounded, Musashi looked across to the opposite side, where he saw red sparks flying through the air like so many fireflies. He could just make out two figures creeping cautiously forward.
A Cleansing Fire
Clenching his teeth tightly on the sputtering fuse, the man made ready to fire his musket again. His confederate crouched down, and squinting into the distance, whispered, “Do you think it’s safe?”
“I’m sure I got him with the first shot,” came the confident reply.
The two crept cautiously forward, but no sooner had they reached the edge of the bank than Musashi jumped up. The musketeer gasped and fired but lost his balance, sending the bullet uselessly skyward. As the echo reverberated through the ravine, both men, the other two from the teahouse, fled up the path.
Suddenly one of them stopped in his tracks and roared, “Wait! What are we running for? There’s two of us and only one of him. I’ll take him on and you can back me up.”
“I’m with you!” shouted the musketeer, letting go of the fuse and aiming the butt of his weapon at Musashi.
They were definitely a cut above ordinary hoodlums. The man Musashi took to be the leader wielded his sword with genuine finesse; nonetheless, he was a poor match for Musashi, who sent them both flying through the air with a single sword stroke. The musketeer, sliced from shoulder to waist, fell dead to the ground, his upper torso hanging over the bank as if by a thread. The other man sped up the slope, clutching a wounded forearm, with Musashi in hot pursuit. Showers of dirt and gravel rose and fell in his wake.
The ravine, Buna Valley, lay midway between Wada and Daimon passes and took its name from the beech trees that seemed to fill it. On its highest point stood an exceptionally large mountaineer’s cabin surrounded by trees and itself crudely fashioned of beech logs.
Scrambling rapidly toward the tiny flame of a torch, the bandit shouted, “Douse the lights!”
Protecting the flame with an outstretched sleeve, a woman exclaimed, “Why, you— Oh! You’re covered with blood!”
“Sh-shut up, you fool! Put out the lights—the ones inside too.” He could hardly get the words out from panting, and with a last look behind him, he hurtled past her. The woman blew out the torch and rushed after him.
By the time Musashi arrived at the cabin, not a trace of light was visible anywhere.
“Open up!” he bellowed. He was indignant, not for being taken to be a fool, nor because of the cowardly attack, but because men like these daily inflicted great harm on innocent travelers.
He might have broken open the wooden rain shutters, but rather than make a frontal attack, which would have left his back dangerously exposed, he cautiously kept at a distance of four or five feet.
“Open up!”
Getting no answer, he picked up the largest rock he could handle and hurled it at the shutters. It struck the crack between the two panels, sending both the man and the woman