Deshi (34 page)

“We’re going after the Rinpoche,” I told her quietly. She nodded as if she were taking it in, but I wasn’t so sure. “You hang tight. The cops will be up here soon.” I gave her shoulder a squeeze and she smiled tightly as I left.

“OK,” Micky said to no one in particular and let out a long, tense breath. “Wallace, give him the shotgun.” He showed me how to work the pump while Wallace took out his pistol and made sure that there was a round in the chamber. “You bring up the rear, Connor,” my brother instructed. “Keep the muzzle pointed away from everybody. Anything happens, get off the trail. Get down. Don’t fire that thing unless you have to. Got it?” His voice was tight and his eyes were serious, but there was a type of wild energy that mimicked the storm, a weird light dancing way back in there as well.

I nodded and we headed down the green tunnel.

The trail was uneven, studded with rocks and fallen timber, an obstacle course that twisted and turned down the mountain. Under the canopy of trees, the force of the rain had lessened, but the humidity closed around you like a blanket. We moved at a tense half-run, crouching in anticipation at every blind turn. The foliage here was thick, closing in on the path to cut off your view of things in the distance.

The run was taking its toll on Micky: you could see his chest working hard. He stopped, bent half over as his spleen started to squeeze a bit. Art stopped with him, watching dispassionately as my brother hawked up something and spit. Wallace, younger and in better shape, continued to move ahead. Art shot a worried glance toward him.

“I’ll go with him,” I told them.

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” Micky protested. You could hear a slight wheeze and he spit thickly, shaking his head.

Art jerked his head. “We’re right behind you Connor. Don’t get too far ahead of us.”

I nodded and headed after Wallace. Two minutes down the slope, he paused, peering out of the shelter of the trees as the trail entered a clearing. Out there, the rain drummed on the exposed ground. The trail ran straight across the top of the clearing. And it ended there. To the right, the open space was dominated by a pond, a dark round pool some hundred feet in diameter. Cattails rustled anxiously in the rain. A culvert ran along the left hand of the trail, turning about halfway across the clearing and disappearing into a rusted drainage pipe that ran under the old logging road to the pond.

“Where’re the others?” Wallace asked me, peering back down the trail.

“On their way.” I gestured toward the clearing. “Whaddaya think?” I looked out and had the sudden premonition of danger.

Wallace shrugged. “That’s where the trail ends. I don’t see anything. They’re probably heading cross-country downslope. Let’s move.” I started to say something, to delay him, but he had already stepped out, moving fast in the clearer space.

I hesitated. “Wallace!” I hissed. I cast a glance back up the trail for Micky and Art, but couldn’t see them yet. I looked into the dark spaces under the trees across the clearing and knew that something wasn’t right. There was wind and noise. My ribs hurt and the shotgun felt heavy and foreign in my hands. But deep down inside me there was a quiet place, where I could feel an old familiar experience of certainty. And dread.

Wallace had almost reached the spot where the culvert cut under the trail when the tree line exploded with noise.

You could see stone fragments shooting up from the ground around him as the bullets hit. Almost too fast for sight to register, his right leg below the knee jerked violently away, bending out to the side. There was a faint spray of fluids, mingled with the rain. Wallace screamed and went down. His pistol flew out of his hand and skimmed into the pond. I looked around for help, but there was just me.

I ran as fast as I could, out along the trail to where he lay. I fumbled the shotgun up and pulled the trigger, aiming in the general direction I had seen the initial muzzle flash come from. I heard the answering pop of the pistol and I worked the mechanism like Micky had shown me and fired again, a jerky reflex shot. Then I dropped the weapon, grabbed Wallace by the shoulders and pulled back, desperate to get him into the ditch and out of the line of fire. As we slithered down into the muck at the bottom of the culvert, he shrieked as his wounded leg, attached mostly by some gristle, bounced over the rim.

Now there was an explosion of shots and Micky and Art pounded out of the woods, laying down some covering fire. They thudded into the ditch behind me, breathless.

“Jesus H. fuckin’…” my brother gasped. A shot whipped across the top of the culvert as I peeked out, and small pieces of rock stung my face.

“Christ,” Art finished. “Wha’ happened?” They were both panting. He gestured at Wallace, who had passed out.

“They caught him out in the open,” I said.

Micky squinted at me. “Didn’t I tell you not to do anything stupid?”

“You didn’t tell me anything,” I started, my voice shrill.

He waved that point away in disgust. “Great. This is classic…”

“Never use the trail,” Art intoned. “Never cross a clearing without covering fire…”

“Where’s your gun?” Micky said. I pointed out on the path where it lay, just out of reach.

“Never lose your gun,” Art finished.

They both slithered up along the edge of the ditch, taking stock, guns pointed up to the trail’s end where I assumed our attackers waited. The rain pelted down, the woods drinking it in and growing darker. The pond churned like a cauldron.

“Here’s another fine mess you’ve got me into,” Art said. He grinned to take the sting out of the words.

But Micky looked down. “Yeah,” he said. My brother squinted up at his partner through the rain. He seemed like he wanted to say more, but didn’t. The two cops looked away, almost as if embarrassed. A rumble of thunder seemed to bring them back into the here and now. Micky and Art silently checked their pistol clips, counting rounds. They looked into each other’s eyes.

“Pretty thin, Mick,” his partner said. “You better take it all.” He gestured with the pistol. “I’m no good with this thing anymore.”

Micky looked at him silently, then gave a wicked grin. “Like hell. We do this together.” Art said nothing, but they divided their ammunition equally.

I looked from one to the other and knew what they were thinking. Kita had counted on the trail leading somewhere, but it dead-ended here. These guys were not woodsmen; faced with the option, they’d prefer to head back up the trail and find another escape route. Which meant coming through us. They wanted us dead anyway.

Another shot made us duck down.

“OK,” Micky said. “Two pistols that we know of…”

“They’re probably running low on ammo, too,” Art commented.

My brother eyed the tree line to the left of the culvert. “Trees are what, thirty feet away? They’re not comin’ across the pond.”

Art slid up along one side of the ditch, peering toward the place we thought the gunman was hiding. “One guy will keep us occupied. The rest’ll sneak around our flank in the trees and make a quick dash for us with the spears.”

“You think?” I was incredulous.

“If they had more firepower, they would have finished us off way before this, buddy boy.” Micky was squinting into the woods. Way back there, you got a hint of movement, a faint blur as shapes flitted from tree to tree.

Art put a tourniquet on Wallace’s leg to slow the bleeding. I tried not to look at the damage. Thunder rolled across the sky.

They came at us all at once. The Mongol moved out from the trail’s end, firing his pistol as he came. A spearman ran alongside him. But they were a distant threat, thirty yards away. On our left flank, screaming attackers plunged through the scrub along the tree line, trying to cover the open ground between us quickly. Their spear points raced out ahead of them, hungry for targets.

“Get up! Get up!” I remember Micky screaming. If they caught us immobile in the ditch, the spears could do their work. Art started shooting, spacing his shots carefully, like a man unsure of his marksmanship. Back in the trees, I heard someone scream; maybe a bullet went home. Micky ripped off a string of shots in the Mongol’s direction, then jumped out onto the trail and scooped up the shotgun where I had dropped it.

They didn’t get to us all at once. It’s probably what saved us. I collided with the first attacker, knocking the yari to one side, then scooping low and sending him somersaulting over me. Another swarmed up, spear at the ready and I heard Micky’s scream of warning: “Connor!” I ducked down again and felt the breath of the shotgun blast as it blew by me. It caught the guy in the midsection, shattering the yari’s shaft and chewing his chest up.

A spearman rocketed across the clearing, weapon driving in toward my brother. I remember how his mouth was locked open in a feral scream. Micky was still looking my way and the attacker was in his dead angle. I tried to get over to him, but slipped in the mud. The first guy I had knocked down started to get up and tripped me.

“NO!” I screamed in frustration.

Art’s head whipped around. He ran toward Micky, barreling into him and knocking him away. His hand came up and he waited, watching the tip of the spear drive closer and closer behind the screaming lunge of the attacker. I saw Art swallow with tension and then fire. Once: a hard flat bark of an explosion in the driving rain.

The spearman was blown flat.

I picked up the two halves of the yari and went to work. You spin in multiple attacker situations, trying not to present too stable a target. It’s a matter of odds really: you move as quickly as you can—strike, dodge, spin, block—and hope you don’t spin onto an unseen opponent’s blade. Or into the line of fire of your friends.

Art’s gun went off a few more times nearby, but I was busy. I used the bottom of the yari shaft in my left hand, parrying attacks. But I drove the attack home with the spear point in my right. It was all thrust work: hard and mean. You get close to people when you kill with blades. You can feel their body heat, smell their breath. It’s a perverse intimacy.

I heard a shout and even through all the noise—thunder and water, gunfire, and the deep thud of bodies in motion—it pierced my awareness. It was a kiai of immense power.

Kita had emerged into the clearing and Yamashita stood before him, offering a challenge. Kita was armed with a sword, and it traced a ghostly arc through the storm. My teacher stood empty-handed, immobile for a split second. Then, with another cry, he was upon Kita.

They were locked together, eyes narrow and noses flaring with effort. Sensei had immobilized the sword blade, but Kita snaked a leg around him and they fell, grunting, to the ground.

Micky shot the Mongol’s companion. Han kept coming. He was alone, but even so, he was formidable. And now we were all out of bullets. The giant’s handgun clicked empty, but he never even slowed down: he threw his pistol at us, snatched up a spear, and came for Micky. In the distance, Kita and Yamashita rolled through the mud. An arm raised up high, a knife flashing before it took a thrusting descent.

I cried out in echo of the weapon’s impact. I couldn’t see who had won. And, simultaneously, the Mongol reached my brother. I tried to lunge at them. I had the sickening fear that I was going to be too slow. Too late. Lightning crackled, and I thought it was a trick of the light when something flashed by the Mongol’s head. He jerked slightly, his full attention diverted from my brother. Even so, the Mongol parried Micky’s lunging attack away and clubbed him down to the ground with tremendous force. You could see Micky’s mouth open as he grunted in pain, but the sound of thunder, the hissing rain, swallowed up all other noise.

Kita rose from the ground, eyes fierce and dark. His hair was wet and matted down across his shoulders. He reached out as if to direct his disciple. But Yamashita rose with him and, driving hard once more with the knife, severed the last of the life force that held Kita upright.

The Mongol saw him fall. Alone now, he howled in rage and went for my brother. As I scrambled toward them, desperate to save Micky, I saw the flash again.

The Mongol stopped in his tracks and looked across the clearing. In the flicker of a lightning strike, Sarah Klein stood there, bow bent in the classic shooter’s posture of kyudo, drawing another arrow. The Mongol grinned savagely and set himself in readiness. I saw Sarah’s mouth open for the kiai. The snap of the bowstring and the streak of the arrow as it shot across the rain-soaked space.

In one fluid motion, the Mongol reached out with a giant hand, trying to snatch the arrow in mid flight. His mouth opened in a cruel laugh as he reached out, but he missed and the shaft transfixed his hand.

I drove the yari’s point into his throat with all the force I had. He rocked back and stood there for a moment as the blood began to spurt. I was still hanging on to the shaft, working the blade back and forth in his neck; he was so big that the step he took actually pulled me along with him. His eyes focused on me, then faded, then focused again.

Micky drove the butt of the empty shotgun against the Mongol’s head. The three of us slipped and collapsed in the mud on the trail. I could feel the flow of the Mongol’s blood hitting me, strangely warm in the cold rain. Micky hammered at him some more.

I rolled to my feet, frantic to anticipate the next attacker, but it was over. The rain slackened and the noise suddenly subsided. Yamashita approached. The blade and his arm were both soaked in blood. Changpa drifted out as well, silently moving across the landscape, pausing to look at each still form in the mud. It was hard to tell whether the marks on his face were from rain or tears.

Sarah moved toward us, dragging the bow on the ground, a useless appendage. She was staring at the Mongol, his body covered in a coating of mud and dark blood, slowly being washed by rain. I reached out for her and touched her lightly on the arm. She turned her head slowly, away from the sight.

“You were... amazing,” I told her quietly.

She didn’t respond. She started to shiver and I held her close, but it seemed a gesture out of place. Sarah stood there, her shoulders hunched up and tense. I wanted to offer her some comfort, but there was precious little to go around.