"But it isn't done with me. It still has to find another host."
David chuckled as if he found that funny. "You think it doesn't know what's going on with us? You're not much more than a damaged foot it needs to gnaw off. The beast thrives in many places at once, Max. You aren't its only host."
"Then what's the point, David? What's the point of you bothering with me?"
"The point? You are the point. If you survive this you'll have taken the beast back into yourself. You know the beast, Max. You recognize its nature, and when this is over you'll know how to bind it, leash it back in. That is the point, that is the right action, not self-annihilation. Most people don't even let themselves believe the beast exists, much less recognize it. But you and I can. We've seen it in ourselves."
Max closed his eyes. "It's too painful."
David's voice came to him gently. "You'll learn how to live with the pain. You'll learn to bend it into beauty. It's not the pain that's so terrible to live with. It's the loneliness. There's so few, so few that have learned. I'm lonely, Max. I want you alive for my sake as much as your own."
They both feel silent. The wind wound its way through the conifers, swept into the charred barrenness, then fell whistling into the ravine. Max opened his eyes.
"Are you ready?" David asked him.
"Yeah. I am."
Chapter 30
Tulenar Internment Camp
Morning. Waning Gibbous Moon.
The glossy black paint gave Shackley away to her. Doris closed the trunk lid over her archery equipment and turned to face him.
"Good morning, Mr. Shackley."
"Good morning, Mrs. Tebbe. I'm glad to see you. We were beginning to worry."
"We were?"
"The guards logged your departure last night, then notified us when you arrived this morning. I wish you would have left word that you had overnight plans."
Doris smiled as pleasantly as possible. "I'm sorry I caused concern. I plan on being away for most of the day. I'll stop by Harriet's desk and leave a note."
"Do you really think that's wise, Mrs. Tebbe?"
"Oh, Harriet won't tell anyone..."
Shackley's cordial manner stiffened. "Coyness doesn't come naturally to you, Mrs. Tebbe. You're too tough to pull it off."
"Then what are you worried about, Mr. Shackley?"
"Your welfare. Truly. I am worried about you. But I'm also worried about what type of image you're presenting. You're still the Center Administrator."
His frankness brought Shackley up a notch in Doris's perception of him, so she responded to him as an equal. "If I decided to dance at the graveyard in my slip, your P.R. boys could figure a way to smooth over my image. So don't tell me they can't neatly explain my simple comings and goings."
"Are they so simple?"
"Mr. Shackley, the WRA's given me the boot. You know that, I know that. Everybody who counts knows that. What would you like me to do, sit in my house all day like a cloistered nun?"
"Yes, if it keeps you from playing amateur sleuth. Perhaps you won't believe me, but I do admire you. Your file, prior to this crisis, is exemplary. But clearly, you aren't yourself right now. The men working on this are professionals and deserve every tax dollar they earn bringing killers to justice, Mrs. Tebbe. If you're using your idle hours poking around, trying to prove the abducted captain is the killer, you might get yourself hurt, or worse, murdered. Or worse. You could put more people in jeopardy and risk more killing while you threaten the real operation."
"So you know what's real, Mr. Shackley. I envy you. I'll stop by Harriet's desk on my way out."
"I can't warn you strongly enough, Mrs. Tebbe..."
Doris was already walking toward the administration building. "Sure you can. You already have."
"If you foul anything up," he called after her, "I will have you confined to quarters, I promise."
"I won't. I promise." At least, I pray to God I won't.
Doris walked through the building, feeling eyes lift to her in spite of the usual, noisy bustle. But she kept walking, not greeting anyone until she stood in front of Harriet Haku. Dear Harriet. Only now did Doris really appreciate what a genuine ally the woman had been to her, how expertly the secretary moved through the turmoil
"Hi, Harriet. How's everything been?"
"Going smoothly enough," Harriet replied, barely looking up from her typing. "It went more smoothly when you were active, but in general the work's getting done."
"I meant you, Harriet. How are things with you? With your family?"
Harriet stopped typing as if Doris had startled her, seemed at a loss at first. It took only a moment for her to regain her composure.
"We're getting by, managing through the days. Thank you for asking. And you?"
And me? I'm trying to ignore the ache that throbs from my chest to my belly. I'm trying to understand why I failed Arthur. I'm trying to understand what I saw last night, what it is that I'm supposed to do.
"Shackley asked me to leave you a loose idea as to my whereabouts, since I'm going to be in and out quite a bit. I thought I might take a little tour due north. I may stay in Shelton overnight. I may not."
Harriet was writing down the lie. Then she did something odd. She made polite conversation, all the more peculiar -at least for Harriet- as her voice took on a light and airy tone. "Do you miss the hustle and bustle, Mrs. Tebbe?"
It was hard to keep the irony out of her voice, but Doris replied, "Oh, not really. I've managed to keep myself busy the last couple of days."
"There was a lot of activity going on yesterday. Two meetings I barely had time to prepare for."
Doris tried to tune in on what Harriet seemed to be saying. "Oh?"
"Yes. Well, I'll keep this information handy, thank you for dropping by with it. The gentlemen of the police department miss you already, Mrs. Tebbe. They had some questions no one else could answer for them. Would you have time to drop by the jail before going on your drive?"
/ / / /
Doris hadn't seen Harriet's husband, Jesse, since Harriet's encounter with the Inu Hunters. But he greeted Doris at the jailhouse as if she had come to see him personally. He wore the armband of a internee policeman.
"Hello, Mrs. Tebbe. My wife telephoned here to say you were on your way."
"Mr. Haku. I didn't realize you were serving."
"Only just came on board."
There was one other policeman reared back with his feet propped on the desk. Behind the bars were two snoring men, one with a black eye. They both had torn and dirty shirts.
Mr. Haku walked over to Doris and took her arm as if to escort her out of the jail. "My shift happens to be up. We've been meaning to bring something to your attention and I'll be glad to show it to you on the way to my quarters. Mr. Tsuji, see you tomorrow."
"Yes, okay," Mr. Tsuji replied. "Good day, Mrs. Tebbe."
There was a feeling of conspiracy between the two men so subtle, Doris wondered if she were just becoming paranoid from all the stress. But as Mr. Haku lead her through the door, he lost the affected congeniality and became the man Doris remembered. Calm, refined, looking older than his years.
He got right to the point as soon as they were out of earshot from any bystanders. "Are you aware of what the new administration is planning?"
"You mean Leonard Shackley and his staff?"
"They're going to round up all the youths that are even remotely rumored to be connected to the Inu Hunters and take them to federal prison."
"Mr. Haku, where did you hear that?"
"Not from the hakujin," he replied.
Hakujin. It simply meant Caucasian in Japanese, but these days it was -more or less- a derogatory term. Like gringo, or darkie. Or Jap.
"This isn't a rumor, Mrs. Tebbe. It comes from a very reliable source."
He didn't have to tell Doris who the source was. Besides Mr. Haku, no one knew better than Doris just how reliable Harriet was, indeed.
"They have some sort of theory that sets these boys up as enemy insurgents," he said, "as the murderers of those poor people..."
Mr. Haku stopped talking a moment to allow a trio of Nisei men to pass by. Then he continued, "If that happens, we're afraid things will get bad. Very bad. There's sure to be riots. Mrs. Tebbe, there can't possibly be any connection between those boys and these horrific murders."
"You weren't so sure of that a couple of months ago, Mr. Haku."
"That was before Mr. Ataki's body was found. Now I am. What happened to him, to Mrs. Tamura and that poor minister...that's not the handiwork of a few petty delinquents, Mrs. Tebbe, and you know it."
"They may be safer in a federal prison."
Not until Mr. Haku had stopped in his tracks, staring at her incredulously from deep-set eyes, did Doris think how that must sound to him, not knowing what she knew.
"They will die in that prison you think is so safe. One way or another. They're Americans, Mrs. Tebbe. Just like me. Just like you. But they look like their Japanese ancestors. How long do you think they'll last in prison?"
"They didn't commit the murders, Mr. Haku. For all Shackley's suspicions, there is no evidence that can link them to the murders. It's impossible to try them, much less convict them."
Mr. Haku stepped back, as if he could barely believe his ears. "Talk to me, Mrs. Tebbe, about evidence and conviction."
He was right. The very least that would come of this was a rebellion. Violence. Possibly even more deaths. A group of angry boys that, once they were carted off, would likely never be released. At least not until the fevers and the fears of wartime subsided, and God only knew when that might be. But what could Doris do?
She knew what she could do.
Mr. Haku was saying, "We had hoped you might still be able to use what clout you have to dissuade your colleagues. You're the closest thing to a friend the people in this camp have."
God in heaven. She knew what she could do. But she needed time to think, had to think this through. Mr. Haku was watching her closely.
"We should keep walking," he said, and Doris obeyed, but her mind was whirring and Mr. Haku seemed to take her preoccupation as a sign that he had made an impression. "We should finish this up by making it look official. Our block manager's rock garden was vandalized last night after curfew. I thought we might inspect the damage. If you don't mind, I'd like to stop by Mrs. Murato's unit and pick up my dauhter on the way."
"Demonstrations," Doris said.
"What?"
Doris stopped walking again. "Legal, peaceable dissent. Shackley wouldn't dare quash a demonstration, not right now. Especially since a precedent has already been set, after the Tamura abduction. I don't know how much I can get done, Mr. Haku, but if you could see to it that a series of calm, controlled demonstrations are organized, or rallies of some sort, that may help stall things. He'd be a fool to issue a mass arrest any time after a formal request for protest crosses his desk. Especially if I can dredge up any sympathetic press...on the sly, of course, gotta be careful there... Anyway, between us, we might be able to milk some time before Shackley catches on."
Mr. Haku nodded thoughtfully, said something in the affirmative, but Doris's mind was already whirring again, trying to figure out how to stall. But ultimately, Doris knew the only certainty that would stop Shackley from issuing the arrests. Produce the real killer. She began to feel sick to her stomach.
They stopped off at the portly Issei matron's quarters to collect little Joy, who promptly moved between her father and Doris to grasp their hands, much as Doris had seen her do when the girl and Mr. Haku escorted Harriet back to their block. Joy lifted her small, round face to Doris and smiled, as innocent in the confines of the camp as any five-year-old strolling in a small town neighborhood.
/ / / /
Mr. Alma Curar met Doris as she stopped the car in front of the shack. He was alone. The left side of his jaw was bruised and puffy.
"Are you all right? What happened?"
"I'm fine," is all he replied, then said, "you look a little strained, though."
He held the car door open for her as she stepped out. "Is that so surprising?"
"Did you bring your archery equipment?"
"Yes, it's back here."
She led him to the trunk and unlocked it before looking around for the captain. "Where's Pierce?"
"Inside." Mr. Alma Curar was reaching for her bow but Doris went for it first.
"Here, I'll get it. Sorry, I just have this thing about anybody handling it."
"It's a beautiful instrument, I don't blame you. I didn't expect it to be so large."
Doris smiled with amusement and surprise. "It's not very large for someone my size. I'm not an overly strong woman. Don't you...I mean...I'd have thought you'd know something about archery."
Mr. Alma Curar looked a little piqued, as if he'd confronted comments like Doris's often. "Nobody in my family has shot an arrow since my great-grandfather. The closest I've come to a bow is seeing an old tintype of Great-Grand Dad holding one across his lap. May I see one of your arrows?"
Chastened, Doris reached into the trunk, took one from the leather quiver and handed it to him. She looked past him, wondering if Pierce were watching. Alma Curar examined the arrowhead.
"Steel?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I'll need to replace these with silver."
"Can you do that? Here, I mean?"
"Sure."
Good. That would take time. Time she needed to decide. Doris looked toward the shack again.