Chapter 10
“Haru-chan, time for dinner!” cried Umako. The only answer was the rustling of the leaves in the wind. “Haru-chan!”
Umako saw Moriko, Naoki’s wife, gathering some plants in the little herb garden inside the Texada sannai. “Moriko, have you seen Harunobu? Is he playing with your boys?”
“No, they were all out by Rattling Bird Lake earlier, but they came back. I haven’t seen Harunobu since then. Is he at the smithy, watching your husband work?”
“No, that was the first place I checked.”
“Perhaps he is at the tatara.”
But Umako didn’t find him there either. She wasn’t allowed inside—the goddess was jealous of other women, and even on the other side of the ocean from Japan, the ironworkers didn’t dare break that taboo—but Tetsue heard her yelling, and came out to investigate.
“What’s the problem, Umako?”
She explained.
“Well, what I suggest you do is go to Camp Double Six and recruit Yells-at-Bears, or one of the samurai, to help you search.”
She thanked him for the suggestion and ran as fast as she could to Camp Double Six, her long black hair streaming behind her.
“Yes, I will help you,” said Yells-at-Bears. “We must first talk to the teenagers he was with earlier, and find out where he likes to go, or has expressed interest in going.”
“I will take you to them. And we should stop at the smithy, and get my husband to help us.”
“Yes.” Yells-at-Bears grabbed a coil of rope, made of twisted dogbane fibers, that was hanging on the wall of the headquarters building, and the two of them set off.
“Are there dangerous wild beasts on Texada?” said Umako, her voice quavering. “Bears? Wolves? Wild Boar? Vipers?”
“None of those,” Yells-at-Bears assured her. Her real fear was that Harunobu had fallen into a lake, or slipped off a cliff, but she didn’t share those concerns with Umako.
At the smithy, they were joined by Arinobu and his assistants, so they had no lack of muscle power if they needed it for the rescue.
They raced over to Iron Haven, and called Moriko. Once she learned that Harunobu was still missing, she tracked down her sons and brought them out to be interrogated.
“Answer all questions,” she ordered. “Hold nothing back!”
“We went to Rattling Bird Lake,” said Taro.
“And we skipped pebbles across the water,” added Jiro. “Maybe Harunobu went back to do it some more?”
“What was he wearing today?” asked Yells-at-Bears.
“Just a loincloth,” said Umako. “It’s been a warm day.”
Yells-at-Bears frowned. The chance of finding a stray fiber on a plant, marking the path Harunobu took, was not good.
“Moriko, please ask around if there was anything near here that might have attracted Harunobu’s attention. In the meantime, we’ll search around both lakes. And we’d best hurry. Sunset is only a few hours away.”
“You’re right,” said Arinobu. “We had best divide into two search parties, we’ll cover more ground that way.”
“I’ll go with Umako and Moriko’s boys to Rattling Bird Lake. You and your helpers, please check out Marsh Berry Lake.”
Perhaps two hours later, both search parties had returned to Iron Haven, without spotting any sign of Harunobu. Naoki, Moriko’s husband, waved them over. He was the chief of the sannai’s charcoal burners. He carried a walking stick, which he thumped on the ground to get their attention.
“One of my charcoal burners says that yesterday he saw a doe and a fawn at the edge of the woods near Iron Haven. They are creatures of habit, and perhaps they returned there this afternoon. If Harunobu saw them—”
“He might have tried to get closer, spooked them, and followed them into the woods!” exclaimed Yells-at-Bears.
“It is a possibility . . .” Naoki agreed.
“Show me where the deer were seen. . . .”
He did so, and Yells-at-Bears waved back the searchers, lest they spoil the ground. “Yes, there were deer here.”
After a time, she found what she had hoped for: a child’s footprint.
“Follow me,” she ordered, “but stay ten feet behind. Keep your eyes and ears open.” The searchers followed, with Arinobu and Umako in the lead, and Naoki close behind.
The ground dipped gradually as they proceeded; they were heading in the general direction of the coast. Yells-at-Bears didn’t like that—the coast in that part of Texada took the form of sheer cliffs—but didn’t share her misgivings with the other searchers.
They came up to an old game trail, running more or less parallel to the coast, and here Yells-at-Bears paused straining her senses. Beyond the trail, the slope steepened, and she was hopeful that the deer—and the boy—turned onto the trail.
“All of you, be still!” she shouted.
But it wasn’t her eyes or ears that spotted the next sign, it was her nose. “Fresh deer scat, off this way!” She now stood a few yards down the trail, in the direction of Sandy Bottom Bay. Of course, she couldn’t be sure that it was from the same deer, or that Harunobu was still following them if it was, but that was her only lead. And the sun had already turned red, so there was no time to lose if they want to find him before nightfall.
“Follow me!”
The trail rose, then descended. She paused all of a sudden. Was that crying she heard? She quickened her steps.
The trail took a sharp drop of several feet and there lay Harunobu.
Yells-at-Bears called out, and Arinobu and Umako ran to her.
“Don’t pick him up yet!” she warned. “We need to know whether he is injured, and how. But you may speak words of comfort to him.”
They followed her advice, albeit reluctantly.
“I don’t like the looks of his ankle,” muttered Yells-at-Bears. “Arinobu and Naoki, please lift him up slowly and carefully, and sit him in front of me.”
They did so.
“The ankle is swollen and may be broken. He must be carried. We can make a stretcher, and—”
“No need,” said Arinobu grimly. “I can carry him back to Iron Haven.”
“Okay, if you can do so without touching his ankle, or letting it hit anything,” said Yells-at-Bears. “But let me check his head first.”
Harunobu’s head was shaved, so this was easy enough. She didn’t find any bruises there, and his pupils were of equal size. However, he had plenty of cuts and bruises on his shins and his hands were red. Plainly, he had managed to catch himself when we fell, and so protected his head.
“All right, as soon as you’re ready, let’s go,” said Yells-at-Bears.
“Thank you, thank you, for finding Harunobu-chan,” said Umako.
By the time they got back to Iron Haven, several stars could be seen in the sky, and the western horizon was a deep red.
Umako held open the door of their home, and Arinobu carried Harunobu inside.
Yells-at-Bears started walking back to Camp Double Six, but stopped when Arinobu came out and called her back.
He held in his hands a sheathed knife. “I made this with my own hands,” he said solemnly. “I forged the steel into a blade, and put on the hilt made by another craftsman.” He unsheathed the knife part way. “See, just under the guard? There’s my mark.”
He sheathed it again and held it in both hands, palms up. “I want you to have it. Thank you for finding my son.”
“Children are precious,” said Yells-at-Bears. “I did not search for Harunobu in the hope of a reward.”
“I know you didn’t, but you deserve one. Please take it.”
“I will,” said Yells-at-Bears. “Good night to you.”
“And to you.” Arinobu shut the door.
Yells-at-Bears pulled out the blade and studied it. She was no stranger to steel blades, having spent almost a year with the Japanese. But this was the first time she had ever met someone who could make a steel blade.
Among her people, craftsmen were thought to have animal spirit helpers who conferred spirit power upon them, the power of creation. Those skilled in working stone, for example, might have sea otter power. Yells-at-Bears had seen otters float on their backs and use a stone to crack open a shell.
But Arinobu’s power, that was extraordinary. He could craft steel into a blade that was far superior to the stone axes and knives that Yells-at-Bears was accustomed to.
There was, from what Isamu had told her, more than one kind of steel power. Tetsue, who she had met earlier, had the power to transform ordinary stone into steel. But Arinobu could shape the steel into a knife blade.
That night, she had difficulty sleeping. In the morning, she walked to Iron Haven, and called upon Umako.
“How is Harunobu doing?”
“Better,” said Umako. “We don’t think the ankle is broken. Arinobu borrowed a little clay from Tetsue, and gently molded it around the ankle. It seemed to help.”
Yells-at-Bears smiled. “Ah. You might strip off some cedar bark, and wrap the strips around the ankle. Even better, there are some herbs I can look for; you put them in water, heat it up, and soak the bark strips in that first.”
“Thank you, I greatly appreciate all you have done for us.”
“There is perhaps something else I can do for you,” said Yells-at-Bears hesitantly. “For you and me, actually. Your husband will be making more knives out of steel?”
“He will be making more ironware. Not just knives, and not just from steel. Cast iron pots for cooking, for example. I can show you one.”
“And what will he do with them?”
Umako shrugged. “Sell or trade them to the other colonists.”
“And some of the colonists, they will trade them in turn to the Indians who live near Texada?”
Umako made a circle with her thumb and index finger. “I would assume so. But you’re the only Indian that any of us who came over on the Iemitsu Maru have met, so far.”
“That will change,” said Yells-at-Bears. “The Tla’amin and the Shishalh come to Texada from time to time, and I think that once the Ieyasu Maru returns, it will visit their villages, and those of other tribes, too. And it will certainly engage in trade, as it did on the way here last year.
“But what I was thinking is that your fellow Japanese have no idea how to bargain with the Tla’amin, or the Shishalh, or any other Indians. Whereas I do. If you let me sell your items for you, for a share of the proceeds, we will both do better than if you sold trade goods to the other Japanese.”
“I will speak to Arinobu about it,” Umako promised.
The next day, Umako told Yells-at-Bears that Arinobu had agreed that at least some of his ironware would be sold by her, on the commission basis that she proposed.
Late in the month, the Unagi Maru arrived in Sandy Bottom Bay. The weary captain reported to Isamu at the Welcome House. “We searched for the Mutsu Maru until half my crew was incapacitated with scurvy.” Captain Araki’s bleeding gums made it clear that he, too, was suffering from the scourge of the sea. “Then we sailed for this place. And if the winds hadn’t been favorable, we’d be floating somewhere in the Salish Sea, our corpses rotting on deck, picked over by gulls. Now, is there anything you can do for my crew?”
“There is,” said Isamu. “We have pine needle tea. It worked fine for the crews that came here before you.” He smiled at Yells-at-Bears when he said this, remembering how in August 1634 she had collected the needles, brewed the tea, and nursed the afflicted sailors from the Ieyasu Maru back to health. “We also have kelp and some other wild plants that our Indian guide here says can help.”
“I am most grateful for the assistance.”