Samuel backed from the Japanese attackers and threw a leg over the rail. Leda shrieked as he pitched himself outward, but he didn’t jump; he ducked the net flung over him, swinging under the rail by his arms and legs. The net slid past with no purchase, weights rattling across the metal rail. As he came around, he let go with one arm and brought the long sword in a powerful sweep over the calf and shin of the closest man, exposing flesh and bone. The man stumbled and stood, but his legs failed him in a step forward.
Samuel wheeled up, straddling the rail with the golden hilt in his hand. Blood smeared over half his face, still welling from the cut; blood from his attackers stained the mats on the deck and thickened the air with scent. He shouted in Japanese, and the last man checked suddenly, the only one of them standing uninjured.
“He Manó! He Manó!” A bark of frantic warning came from the canoe. “Auwe, Haku-nui! No! No leap!”
Leda recognized Manalo and Mr. Dojun in the native craft, but she had no time to think of it. Mr. Ikeno lunged toward her. She recoiled from him, but he caught her arm, jerking her back. The railing collided painfully with her hips. Her straw hat flew off. Her feet came off the deck. He shoved her, and she tilted so far over that she caught a flashing image of her hat twirling to the water.
Mr. Ikeno held her there by one arm, her fingers slipping on the round metal rail, a scream jammed in her throat. Then he pulled her upright just enough to keep her frantically kicking feet from finding the deck.
Samuel was staring at them, breathing hard. The canoe thumped into the hull of the fishing boat, below him.
Mr. Ikeno spoke. His voice was soft, but Leda gasped against his tightened grip. She couldn’t wriggle from the brutal hold. And he was pushing her again; he was tipping her backward so that if he let her go, she would topple over the rail and into the water.
She tried to curl her hand in his sleeve, around his arm, her fingernails digging into whatever she could catch. Her feet found the deck, slid and slipped helplessly, and lost contact. It was only Mr. Ikeno’s grip that held her balanced.
“Fuka!” Samuel bellowed. “Same! Do you see it, Ikeno? That’s my shark.” He thrust the short sword through his belt and swung off the rail. “I called it!” He sounded crazy, shouting in Japanese and English at the fierce limit of his lungs. He hit his chest with his fist. Boku-no, Ikeno, wakarimasu ka?”
Suddenly he wielded the golden sword in a two-handed swipe at Ikeno’s man. His target sprang upward, a superb leap that should have cleared the blade, but Samuel halted the momentum in mid-pivot, and the man came down with the point at his throat. As he arched backward into the rail, Samuel kicked his feet from under him, so that he teetered over it for a moment in the same way Leda did.
The man threw his legs upward and back, vaulting the bar like a circus performer. He held on by his hands, his feet dangling over the water.
“Onaka ga sukimashita ka! Are you hungry, shark?” Samuel brought the blade of the sword flat on the iron rail. It rang like a cracked bell. Leda felt the vibration under her fingers. He hit it again. “Come here, fuka! I’ll feed you!”
“You lōlō?” Manalo shouted from the canoe. “No call shark!”
“He won’t hurt me. Or what’s mine.” He swept the sword over the dangling man’s hands, a breath from cutting them. “He might eat this if I gave it to him.”
Mr. Ikeno shouted, abrupt and guttural in his own language. Leda gave a little shriek and scrabbled for a purchase as he pushed her further out of balance over the rail.
Samuel stepped back, allowing the man to pull himself up and clear the rail. At the same moment, Mr. Dojun hiked aboard from the canoe.
Mr. Ikeno kept her at a perilous angle, calling out sharply in Japanese.
Samuel stood still in the middle of the deck and the matting streaked with blood. He reached down and picked up the red lacquered sheath and rammed the blade inside it.
“Ikeno-san! Dojun-san!” He held the sword aloft, shouting. “Who wants it?”
No one moved; no one said anything.
“Dojun-san! My master, my teacher, my friend! My friend!” His furious voice echoed back from the island and the water. “Here’s your sword, Dojun-san!” He swept a deep bow and extended it, the sheath shining crimson and gold.
Mr. Ikeno growled a warning and tipped Leda a degree further backward. She shrieked, fighting to hold onto his arm, the slick rail, whatever she could clutch.
“Why, Dojun-san!” Samuel said in vicious mockery. “Look what happens if I give the Gokuakuma back to honorable master.”
Mr. Dojun stared at him, unblinking.
Samuel shrugged, lowered the sword. “So. Get another wife, nē? You bastard. You bastard, you don’t care; you conned me; you screwed me; you’ve used me for seventeen years, you bastard, why’s she here?” He was breathing harshly, a loud sound through his teeth. “Look at her!” he howled, holding the sword over his head. “Do you know how fast I’d kill you both?”
“You got weakness, Samua-san,” Mr. Dojun said quietly. “Want too much.”
Samuel stared at him. He lowered the sword. “Want too much,” he repeated, in a disbelieving voice. “I want too much!”
The drying blood on his face was like war paint. He shook his head, as if the idea bewildered him, as if Mr. Dojun dumbfounded him.
He turned suddenly, pounded the sword on the iron rail again. “Do you hear him, shark? I want too much!”
Leda sucked in air as she looked sideways and saw the ghastly shape shoot out from beneath the boat, blunt-nosed and tremendous, so huge that when its head was even with the end of the boat, the triangular fin was right below her. It bumped the hull, and the whole vessel rocked.
Samuel said, “I don’t want too much.” He turned with the sword toward Leda and Mr. Ikeno.
Mr. Dojun made a noise. It began as a drawn-out, growling shout and rose. It ran through her with a paralyzing shock; she felt her captor’s hold on her tighten.
Samuel stopped as if a wall had sprung up in front of him. Leda squeezed her free hand frantically, trying to cling to the rail, fighting, feeling her balance slipping as Mr. Ikeno tilted her.
“Samuel!” she whimpered.
He moved. With a sound that was no sound, an explosion of air and force that sent everything else to silence, he hurled the sword in the air.
Mr. Ikeno shoved away from her, leaping to intercept it on the upward arc. Leda screamed and scrabbled for equilibrium, half over the rail, water and boat pitching wildly in her vision. Something caught her arm, jerking her savagely forward onto her feet. Samuel dragged her against his chest, stumbling backward with the force of his haul. Mr. Ikeno didn’t even glance at them; he was staring up at the sword that tumbled end over end in a high arc and came hurtling down.
It struck the water point first, ten feet from the boat. It barely made a splash, and seemed to catch the sun along its full length beneath the clear water. From a distance, the shark turned with feline quickness. The sword sank like a leaf falling, leisurely, the golden hilt dimming and flashing. As the creature shot toward the weapon, its huge head seemed to swell. The body rolled, showing white belly and gaping mouth, a macabre instant of nightmare teeth and the sword sliding in as if sucked by a siphon.
“Iya!” Mr. Ikeno murmured.
The gray fin broke the surface. The shark swept past the fishing boat, rocking it with the surge of its passage.
“He Manó,” Manalo called from the canoe, with awe in his voice. “Ka waha ō Kaahupahau!”
No one else spoke. The shark turned away to the open harbor. Its fin slipped beneath the water. The appalling shape grew indistinct, and sank out of sight in the depths.
Samuel held Leda against him, his back pressed to the low deckhouse. He felt the shudders running through her, one after another, each time she tried to speak or move. Her hair had come loose and was dragging in her eyes; he smoothed it back, looking over her head toward the others.
Ikeno stood motionless, gazing a
fter the shark. “Aiya!” he muttered. “Buddha and all the gods secure us. What has the Tanabe done here?”
“I know not,” Dojun said softly.
Ikeno didn’t turn at his voice. “Is he a madman or holy? What have you done, Tanabe-san? What have you made?”
“I have no answer. It happened.”
Ikeno pulled an omamori charm from beneath his clothes and held it in his fist. “The god of war speaks, nē?” he suggested uneasily. “Perhaps Hachiman of the bow and feathered shaft is ill at ease, and slips from beneath his temple stone to fly abroad. Namuamidabutsu; namuamidabutsu.” He made a little chant beneath his breath.
“What will you do?” Dojun’s voice was even.
Ikeno let go of the charm. His eyes narrowed, and he shrugged, as if shaking off the superstitious dread. “Fish for shark,” he said, with a jerk of his chin. But beneath the defiance, there was a weight of gloom in his voice.
“Hopeless,” Dojun said. “Your rōtō bleed.”
Ikeno looked over his shoulder, where his one uninjured man was binding up the others. “We’ll all bleed from a bellyache. Kuso! I should have gone in after it.”
“A dog’s death. A pointless death.”
“You’re a traitor! You’ve betrayed our country. The Gokuakuma is needed now. We’re kneeling with our foreheads to the floor before the West.”
“Then let us stand upright, and not give our trust to demons!” Dojun snapped. “I don’t believe the god of war lives beneath a temple stone. I’ve been in the West too long. Hachiman lives elsewhere, Ikeno-san—in the bellies of politicians and priests and men like you and me.”
Ikeno snorted. “Nihonjin no kuse ni! The Tanabe has indeed been in exile too long. He is not Japanese.”
Dojun whirled on him, with a look of more emotion than Samuel had ever seen in his face. Ikeno stood with his legs apart, head lifted, welcoming a fight.
A voice rose in emphatic pidgin above the murmurs of the bloodied fighters by the cabin. Manalo had come aboard; with island artlessness, he tied bandages, lending himself to helping men who would have killed him without conscience a quarter hour before.
Dojun turned his head. He watched them. After a moment he met Samuel’s eyes. With a sardonic smile, he said, “Perhaps honored Ikeno-san speaks more than he knows.”
Samuel couldn’t interpret that look. He realized that he’d never really known anything of Dojun’s true emotions. Even now he didn’t, having filtered it all through the sieve of his own yearning, his own anger and hurt. Always—always—Dojun had pulled his strikes, except for that one trial in Haleakala, and even then—even then…Samuel had sometimes wondered.
Dojun was a master. He always had been. He always would be.
But this time, Samuel had challenged the adamantine wall of his intention and broken it with his own.
Dojun bowed toward him with rigid pride. “A Western friendship is a potent and difficult thing, I find. But there are things that can’t be avoided in this cycle of existence.”
Samuel heard the accusation—and admission. He held the look defiantly. “He didn’t get your demon sword, did he?”
“No.” Dojun gazed out at Pearl Harbor. “He did not.” He smiled faintly. “But remember the starfish, Samua-san.”
Samuel held Leda’s body to him and put his face into the curve of her neck. She clutched at his hand. A long shudder ran through her.
“If you please,” she said, in a small and ordinary English voice, “may we go home now?”
Samuel called to Manalo, who instantly raised his hand in acknowledgment and dropped down into the canoe. When Leda saw that, she stiffened in Samuel’s embrace.
“Must we go in that small boat?”
He tightened his arms around her. “The shark’s gone.”
She shivered. She took a deep breath. “Well. Yes! I’m sure that you must be right.” With a little push, she stood straight. Without looking at Ikeno, or Dojun, or the mess on the deck, she set her face into the stern resignation of a martyr and stepped gingerly over the bloody mats. At the rail, she stopped. “I should like to take the bride table, Mr. Dojun. If you would kindly bring it. Perhaps it can be fixed, and another sword found to replace the one that was—swallowed.”
Dojun didn’t blink. He bowed and said, “Sayō. I fix, Mrs. Samua-san. All good luck.”
“Excellent. And I must thank you and Mr. Manalo for your rescue. As you saw, Mr. Gerard had the situation well in hand, but your courage and kind aid were most obliging.”
“Kin doku. Too much honor.” Dojun bowed, a deep bow of respect. “Good wife. Good wife, Samua-san. Kanshin, kanshin.” He changed to Japanese. “Take her now. I mean what I say. She is admirable. I respect her. She wishes very much to do you credit.”
Samuel hesitated. It was praise beyond anything he’d ever heard from Dojun. “You’re not coming?”
“Send Manalo back for me.” He smiled wryly. “I’ll bring your bride table.”
Samuel flickered a glance toward Ikeno and the others.
“I wish to persuade this ill-advised person of his folly in thinking I am not Japanese,” Dojun said lightly.
Ikeno pushed back from where he’d been gazing out over the far rail and grunted. His scowl was like one of the devil-faced warriors of the woodblock prints, as if he’d enjoy killing someone.
Anger at Dojun still rode deep in Samuel’s blood, but some perverse fusion of loyalty and habit and obligation made him say, “Need help?”
Dojun passed his hand in front of his face, a negative gesture. “Chigaimasu. What do you think, little baka?”
Samuel looked sideways at Ikeno’s ready stance. He smiled caustically. “All right,” he said in English. “Have fun.”
Leda sat in front of him in the canoe, rigid, with her hands and elbows pulled in close to her body. They reached shore without any sign of threat from sharks. The boy Shōji, who’d manned the rice-paddy tin cans to communicate with Samuel while he was aboard the fishing boat—a single ring to alert him that one of Ikeno’s men was coming, two for a stranger, three for Dojun—stood waiting. He jumped to help drag the canoe onto the muddy beach. Samuel, his linen trousers plastered to his knees, waded up onto dry land to hand her out. She gathered her skirts as if she were exiting a carriage in Park Lane.
Shōji had the horses tied to the buggy. Leda waited while they put one in the traces. She looked like a street waif, with her hair flying around her face and her hat gone.
Samuel wanted to go to her and drag her into his arms and hold her, hold her, tight and close. But instead he worked with Manalo and the boy, hiding the awkwardness that came on him. He finished fastening a buckle and stood there, staring at it.
Shōji gave him an anxious look, and he realized that the boy was worried about Dojun. “He’s all right,” Samuel said shortly. “Just keep watch.”
Shōji slipped silently onto the path among the bushes and vanished.
Manalo headed back to the canoe. When Leda vigorously protested the danger of it, the Hawaiian only shrugged. “Got go back, pick up that Dojun-san sometime.”
“But the shark—”
He grinned. “Manalo too much bad taste. Shark no like.”
“Maybe relish for the whiskey flavor, eh, blad?” Samuel muttered. “You get drunk next time, I call shark here, rip off you laho.”
Manalo’s grin lost its easy polish. He gave Samuel an uncomfortable look.
“Mahope aku,” Samuel said, with a jerk of his head. “Later, brother. We talk.”
The Hawaiian made a wry face and bent over the outrigger, wading in as he shoved off. “Maybe Manalo go fish few days.” He leaped aboard, lifting his paddle in the air. “Aloha nui.”
Leda stood and watched intently until the canoe was out of sight around the island in the harbor. “Well!” she said. “I hope he may know whereof he speaks concerning sharks.”
Samuel leaned his hand on the horse’s flank. He saw her shiver, but she didn’t look at him. She hugged hersel
f and stared at the water, blinking rapidly.
“Leda—”
She turned her head, with a bright, blank look. Then her gaze moved over the bloodstains on his collar and lapels. Her breath became a sob. She hugged herself tighter and swallowed, panting, making desperate little noises in her throat. “I don’t want to cry! I’m not going to cry!”
He took a step, and halted. “It’s all right.” He stood stiff, gripping a support bar of the buggy top. “You can cry.”
She shook her head violently. “I won’t! It’s so—undigni—” A loud, sharp, hiccuping sob interrupted her. “Undignified!” Her hair came free and tumbled across her shoulder as the tremor in her broke, going to dry sobs that jarred her body, deep and shrill with delayed hysteria. “I don’t—like…sharks! I don’t wish to be held over sharks!”
“No more sharks,” he said. “No more swords.” He kept his hand clamped on the buggy pole, squeezing it.
“And that—and that is anoth-th—another thing! That was the most un—sportsmanlike sword fight I ever saw!” She clutched her arms tight around herself. “Even if I’ve never seen any!” she added vehemently. “It was preposterous! Why did you have to begin by sitting down? Mr. Ikeno had all the advantage! And with that mah-huh—mah-huh…monstrously insufficient—sword they gave you! You might have been—you might—have been—” She lost her voice in squeaky gasps. “Oh—Samuel!”
He let go of the pole. He grabbed her hard into his arms. She was shaking so much that her knees kept crumpling beneath her. She clutched him by the sleeves, burying her face in his chest. He stroked her and held her, and rocked her, with a strange, fierce laughter welling up inside him. “My brave lady. It’s all right. My brave girl. My sweet, brave lady.”
She wept against him. He cradled her, took all her weight on himself. He rested his torn cheek against her hair, welcoming the sting of it.