Seas of Fortune(171)

“Did you hear something?” Yakichi said sharply to his companion, Sakuzo. Thanks to his deal with the authorities, Yakichi had been able to borrow the money for a part-share in Sakuzo’s boat, brought over from Japan.

The second arrow just missed Sakuzo’s head, and only because he happened to lean over the gunwale to look for fish at the key moment.

“Fuck! We’re being shot at!” Yakichi shouted. “Keep down,” he added, and took his own advice.

They were, at the time, about a mile north of the mouth of the Carmel River, about two hundred yards away from Carmel Beach.

They hastily turned the boat toward the open sea, which both made the boat a smaller target, and also allowed them to quickly open up the range. After some frantic paddling, they turned once more to parallel the shore. Very cautiously they made for the river mouth.

As soon as they saw the village women standing in the shallows of the river, washing clothes by kicking them about with their feet, they started yelling for them to run to the fort and alert the soldiers.

* * *

“Where is First-to-Dance?” Kanesada demanded.

The sentry gawked at him. “I think . . . I think she said she was going off to gather berries, sir.”

“We can’t wait for her. Sound assembly! For both the guard and the militia!”

“The militia is responsible for village defense, I am leaving four guardsmen on foot to assist them. The rest of us will ride a sweep to the north, to where the shooting occurred.”

Kanesada swung himself into the saddle, and his fellow patrollers followed suit. They rode perhaps two miles, through meadows and open woods, without spotting any Indians.

This is a waste of time, Kanesada decided. By now, they are back in their village, congratulating themselves on giving us a scare. Well, I’ll give them a scare.

“Back the way we came!”

They rode back, and this time, they crossed the Carmel River. It was still low water; the winter rains hadn’t yet begun. He knew, from conversations with First-to-Dance, where the Indian camp was mostly likely to be; it would be positioned near a place convenient for catching the salmon running down the Carmel.

The Indians weren’t accustomed to horses, and therefore they reacted by fleeing or hiding, rather than fighting. Hiding, however, was not a good idea, as the Indians didn’t have time for stealth, or for hiding the signs of their passage. Two women and a child were taken prisoner, and brought back, tied to spare ponies, to serve as hostages.

As he and his men rode back through the gate of the Maruya fort, Kanesada felt quite pleased with himself.

* * *

“Are you sure that these are the same Indians that attacked your fishermen?” First-to-Dance demanded.

“Not these individuals, of course, but their tribe,” said Kanesada. “Their camp was only a few miles away from where the shooting occurred, so who else could it be? And we hold the entire tribe responsible for the actions of any of its members.” Japanese law included the principle of collective responsibility.

“May I see the arrows that were fired at the fishermen, please?”

Fortunately, the fishermen had pulled them out of their boat and brought them to the fort, as proof that they had been attacked, and weren’t malingering. First-to-Dance studied them carefully, her brows narrowing as she did so.

“What happened to the arrows that were left in the ground by our Cross?”

“The headman has them. He kept them as souvenirs.”

“Please have him bring them here.”

In due course, she laid them out, one next to the other, on the floor. She set the two new arrows a foot or so away from the old ones, close enough to make comparisons, far enough away to avoid accidentally mixing the two groups.

She looked up at Kanesada. “As I feared, they are not from the same tribe.”

“How do you know?”

“The way they are painted is different.”

“Wouldn’t that just mean that they were made by different Indians of the same tribe? So they’d know who made a kill?”

“Yes and no. The old ones were made by three different makers, and the new ones by two others. But on the butt ends, the old ones all use two colors, and new ones just one. That tells me that the new ones are from a smaller tribe than the old ones; they needed fewer colors to tell whose was whose.

“And look at the patterns. All of the old ones have eight painted short bands and then a long one, in alternating colors. The new ones both have two long bands, with an unpainted gap in-between.”

Kanesada took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. “All right, I’ll have you question the hostages. See what they say about these arrows.”

* * *