“Yes,” she said, a speculative tone in her voice, “and you’re far enough up in the mountains that you’re probably not bothered much.”
“That was the idea. Continued experience shows this is a time when it’s best not to let strangers know your home address.”
Eli rapped gently on the wooden door, and a few moments later, a senior woman opened it. She appeared to be in her early sixties, compact and muscular for one so short. Her black and steel gray hair was cut close and her face was quite smooth for one her age. It was set in an emotionless mask until she saw it was Eli standing there, then the mask slipped away and was replaced by a pleased expression, sub-texted with mirth.
“So, wandering one, you have finally decided to grace us with your presence again,” she said.
“Ah, Kita, you know me. I was born under a wanderin’ star…” He started to take a deep breath, and the woman raised one finger.
“Please, no singing. That is NOT one of your many talents.”
Eli assumed a tragic expression, “Kita, really. I’m gone two weeks, and this is the reception I get?”
“I have heard you singing with the men when a new batch of ‘shine’ has cured. It is not to be endured by anyone with a reasonable sense of tone and pitch.”
“Okay. Fine,” Eli said with a wounded air. He gestured towards Ghost Wind, “Kita, I would like to introduce you to Ghost Wind, former scout of the Clan of the Hawk up there to the north.”
Kita looked at the younger woman, the emotionless mask fell back into place. “You brought her here, directly to the village without taking her to the waiting house first?”
Eli seemed surprised, “We’ve traveled a while together, I’ve gotten to know her and I vouch for her. My word should mean something, as co-founder of this place.”
Kita looked back to the scout. “And why, girl, are you a former scout of the Clan of the Hawk?”
Ghost Wind flushed slightly, but she stood straighter and said, “I was banished.”
Kita turned to Eli with a ‘what the hell were you thinking’ look, then, turning back to the younger woman asked, “Why exactly were you banished? Tell me the entire story.”
“I… I made a horrible mistake.” Ghost Wind could no longer hold her head high and found herself looking at Eli’s boots. “I was seduced by a man. We met on the sly and he… he… seemed wonderful. I fell in love with him.”
For a moment, the iron haired woman’s face softened. “That seems like a small thing to be banished for.”
“That was not the reason.” Ghost Wind’s face grew more red. “He did not love me as he said he did. He was using me to get close to my teacher. I took him to meet her and he murdered her. She had been a formidable thorn in the side of the kilabykers and slavers of that area and he used me as a tool to remove her.”
“And you were banished,” Kita said, matter-of-factly. She reached out and raised Ghost Wind’s chin, “Was that scar part of your punishment?”
“Not officially.” The young scout’s voice quieted as she pulled her chin from Kita’s fingers. “It was given me by my sister.
She also assumed I had been a willing accomplice to my teacher’s murder.”
“And were you?”
“I was NOT!” The girl’s face came back up, angry, “I loved my teacher! She was like a mother to me from the time I was eight years old. I would have died to have prevented what happened! Instead, I almost died because I couldn’t. I cannot return to the Clan lands upon pain of death. I am alone.”
“And you are still alone.” Kita raised her hand to stop the angry outburst starting from Eli’s lips, “Perhaps all is as you say or perhaps you are a skilled infiltrator sent by our enemies to find our weaknesses. If not the latter, then you are simply a warrior with extremely poor judgement. In either case, I can see no place for you here.”
****
Kita saw astonishment on Eli’s face. He couldn’t seem to believe what he was hearing.
He rounded on her, turning his back on the young scarred woman he had brought unannounced into their village. “Goddamn it Kita! What. The. FUCK!!”
The woman had seen her long-time friend angry before, but in their fifteen years of building Yama No Matsu, she had never seen him this enraged. She had a momentary urge to take a step back, but that was not the way of Bushido. She simply gave him a flat look.
It took a moment for the tall dark skinned man in front of her to master himself, his corded muscles unclenching. She took that moment to seize control of the argument.
“You say she is a lost waif warrior alone in the wilderness, but she has already been used to cause the death of one of her masters” Kita said, voice sharp as a sword blade. “Who is to say whether or not she has told you all of the truth of that story, or if she has just woven some truth into a web of lies. For all you know, she’s joined the groups we strive to avoid and is mentally taking notes of all our defenses to take down to Shell and his gang.”
“The hell.” Eli’s sensuous lips narrowed to a thin line for a moment and she waited for him to continue, one eyebrow raised. He took a deep breath, obviously trying to control his anger.
“Now you listen to me, little sister, I may not be the great organizer you are, and I may not be the leader of a dojo full of warrior wannabes, but I have been around a LONG time, even longer than you. In those years, I have learned a little bit about people, and this young woman is not a liar. She may be proud, stiff necked, and not always able to see what’s good for her, but by God, she is not with those fucks down in Bend.”
“It is my place to watch over this place and these people,” she said. “I do not have the luxury of wandering all over the region playing rescuer to every lost soul wandering what remains of the old roads.” Her own voice began to rise, “You brought this girl here, completely violating and bypassing all the safety protocols we’ve set in place and expect me to welcome her with open arms? Really?”
“Kita,” Eli said, obviously trying to get his anger under control, “Ghost Wind is special. She’s already a warrior. She’s a tracker and a scout, two things we desperately need and I’ve never seen anyone who could appear and disappear so damn well, not even in the Beforetime when I was with all the Special Operations people.”
“And what if she is playing you?”
“She saved my life. Without her, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. In fact we wouldn’t ever be speaking to each other again without the use of a séance.”
Kita was silent a moment. “Tell me.”
“Remember I went to see if I could smoke out Lester and Benny? Well, that didn’t work out so well. It was a trap. They’d somehow been expecting me, and left a few well-hidden bear traps lying around. Being a little overconfident…”
“You? Really?”
Eli gave her a flat look of his own. “If you don’t want to hear the story…”
“Please! Continue.”
“Those two rejects from a pigsty actually managed to get me caught in a rusty iron bear trap, which I might add was one of the most painful things I’d ever experienced until I was worked over with rebar clubs and then nailed to a big wooden X out in the cold, windy, farm area south of the river.”
“Dear God!” Kita’s expression was one of disgust and horror. “And your… ‘special healing powers’ couldn’t fix you?”
“There’s only so much super-genetics can do. I wasn’t in a position to consume mass quantities of food. I was too busy trying not to freeze to death. So, guess how I survived?”
“The girl?”
“Got it in one. She appeared out of nowhere, practically under the noses of Benny and Lester and got me off that damn cross. The turds came to investigate, and she disappeared back into the sagebrush. When they were getting ready to use me for spear practice, she managed to kill both of them, with no gun, and they NEVER saw her coming.”
“I… did not realize that she helped you that much…”
“She didn’t ‘help’ me Kita, she flat out saved my life. Then she took the time to nurse me back to health. I’d say that makes her pretty ‘vouched for’ in my book.”
“Think for a moment, Eli,” Kita looked up at him, “If you were going to infiltrate us, can you think of a better plan? No one would miss Lester or Benny, numbskulls that they were, not the Road Sharks, not the Red Slavers. This ‘warrior woman’ just happens to appear, right when you’re at your worst and ‘rescues’ you. Who is to say she didn’t betray her people in reality and join with this lover of hers against them? You have only her word how she received that scar. It could all be an elaborate hoax to find Yama No Matsu so it can be pillaged and its people enslaved.”
“I see two problems with your theory, Kita. One: I was not born yesterday. In fact though most might not know it, I’m older than you are. I have worked with some of the most devious people in the world and I’m pretty sure, buried bear traps notwithstanding, I can see through the bullshit of even a seasoned actor.”
“I see. And two?”
“Two: What would be the more desirable outcome for Shell? To gain the location and inside info on this village, which does not in anyway impact his day-to-day, but instead is just on his wish list…”
“I sense an ‘or’ coming.”
“Or… to eliminate the biggest thorn in the side of the Road Sharks by killing me, the one who is constantly thwarting him, releasing slaves, attacking thugs, tearing at his infrastructure. Which do you think would be higher on his to-do list? I’m thinking my death would be on top. He’d want, and pardon my hubris, to take the king off the chessboard. But look, here I am. Because of her. Please, explain how that makes ANY sense in the context of your paranoid theory.”
Kita looked away over the valleys and mountains.
“All right, I might be willing to give her a chance, under close scrutiny.”
“Did you hear that…?” Eli looked back over his shoulder, Ghost Wind was gone.
“I should have known,” Ghost Wind muttered under her breath. “How stupid was I to think the Creator Spirit would let me off the hook for what I’ve done. Until I atone by taking Axyl’s goddamned head, I will always be alone!”
She had retrieved her gear from Eli’s cabin, and was almost back to Kenji’s lookout. She opened the door, bringing in a small amount of crumbly snow and surprised the boy, who had been lightly dozing.
“Miss Ghost Wind!” he said, jerking awake, “I wasn’t sleeping!”
“Yes,” she said dryly, “so I see.” Ghost Wind kicked off the borrowed boots and checked her moccasins which were almost dry. She hesitated a moment, but regretfully slid the alpaca wool socks off and put her own damp ones back on. They were clammy, but at least they had dried some.
“Um,” Kenji said, “how did it go with Kita?”
“Not well.” She pulled on her moccasins and stood, shouldering her bedroll pack. “Not well at all. It was nice to have met you, Kenji. I must be going.”
“But… I don’t understand! Why didn’t Kita…”
“You can ask her, Kenji, but when you see Eli, thank him for trying, will you?” With that, she stepped out of the door and started back toward the main road. As she moved from a dry piece of pavement to snow patch and back, she looked over her shoulder. Kenji was watching her from the doorway. His expression was confused and sad.
Well, at least one person is unhappy I’m leaving. Guess I should be thankful for that.
As she walked, Ghost Wind noted that even up here, where the snow still reigned, the areas under many of the pines had melted, and if they were close together, the bare patches almost formed a highway through the wilderness. There was a lot less brush in this area than on her home range and the going would be easier, even having to cross the large snowy areas still remaining.
Time to go back to the Scout Way.
****
Eli was fuming. “You couldn’t have said anything, when you saw her walking off? You should have said something!”
Kita shrugged. “I wasn’t going to let her stay. Her walking away was just fine with me, but I knew you’d try to stop her.”
Eli glared at her, and started down the street. “Was she heading towards my place?”
“Yes,” Kita yelled after him, “So, I wonder, Eli, is your interest in this young woman more than just for a new member of the village?”
“Phht.” Eli looked over his shoulder, “No! Nothing like that…”
A slow smile began on Kita’s face as the big man stalked off.
Eli walked the length of the makeshift ‘street,’ watching for the tracks the boots he had loaned Ghost Wind would make.
“I’ve really got to do a refresher on my tracking,” he said to himself. People out and about watched their champion curiously as he went muttering down the street, gesticulating with his arms at no one visible.
When he arrived at his cabin, Ghost Wind was nowhere to be found and all her gear was gone. She hadn’t waited.
“C’mon, girl, give us half a chance here. We can make this work!” He cringed when he thought of Kita’s words to the proud young scout. It was really no wonder she had been gone when he turned around. He should have expected it and headed her off. When you put one overly proud, stick-up-the-ass woman against another, disaster of one sort or another was usually the eventual result.
He turned down the path towards the lookout point and finally found her tracks, recognizing the slightly overlarge bootprints in the snow. Ten minutes later, he stuck his head in the door and barked at Kenji, “Where is she?”
The boy, not used to this tone from the normally kind and charismatic man he idolized, pointed at the footwear on the floor.
“Is it true? Did she have a fight with Kita?”
“Yes.” Eli saw that Ghost Wind had left the boots and the alpaca wool socks, and switched into her probably still wet moccasins and ratty socks. “And obviously, she’s not going to take anything from us that might be helpful to her.”
“Ghost Wind seemed pretty mad, but kinda sad too.”
“Aw… SHIT.” Eli looked at the boy. “I’ll see if I can find her, and maybe we can get this sorted out. I think Kita might give a little, if I can just find Ghost Wind and keep her from hitting the road prematurely. Later, Kenji.”