Sano put together the rest of the story. “After Tekare’s murder, Gizaemon would have ordered Wente to keep quiet.” Gizaemon had thought himself safe because she knew that incriminating him would incriminate her as well. “But when I started investigating the murder, he became afraid that Wente would crack.” Now Gizaemon was less concerned that Reiko, Sano, and their comrades were at large than threatened because Wente had escaped his control. “He can’t let her go free to tell anyone about his part in Tekare’s death; he can’t risk that Lord Matsumae might hear. He has to cover his tracks by doing what he knows he should have done sooner.”
“Eliminate Wente,” concluded Marume.
Sano’s horror multiplied as he realized what that meant for his wife. “When Gizaemon kills Wente, he can’t leave a witness. If Reiko is there to see, she’ll figure out why he did it. She can’t be permitted to live and tell. Gizaemon will kill her, if Wente hasn’t yet.” The situation altered drastically once more, as did Sano’s plans. “We have to get to Reiko and Wente before Gizaemon does.”
“All right,” Marume said. “We’ll go after them. But what about Lord Matsumae? Should we forget about him, or kill him first?”
Sano’s attitude toward Lord Matsumae shifted to fit the new reality. Lord Matsumae hadn’t murdered Tekare. And although Sano wasn’t willing to forgive him for everything else, including Masahiro’s death, there was a reason to keep him alive. Sano thought of Reiko and Wente somewhere in the vast, winter wilderness of Ezogashima. He and his men lacked the equipment and skills to find the women. They would surely get lost and freeze to death before they could save Reiko, and Gizaemon had a big head start.
“No,” Sano said, “we shouldn’t forget Lord Matsumae, but we won’t kill him-at least not yet. We need him.”
32
Sunset painted brilliant copper bands across the sky. Reiko and Wente rode the sled through a meadow whose snow glowed with fiery, reflected light. They and the dogs trotting ahead of them were alone in the wilderness landscape that spread as far as Reiko could see.
They’d spent the long day following a trail that Masahiro must have stumbled onto when he’d run from the soldiers who’d chased him. Before the snow it would have been visible; now it was buried. They’d met no one, seen no human footprints. At first Reiko had spied small villages in the distance, settled by Japanese traders and farmers, but in late afternoon they’d crossed into Ainu territory.
Now Reiko felt as if she’d truly broken loose from everything familiar. Ainu territory was the loneliest place she’d ever been. She experienced a city-dweller’s fear of nature untamed by man and the fear that she wouldn’t find Masahiro. All that connected her to him was an invisible trail of scent. She clung to Wente as the sled bumped over ice. Her body was stiff from the cold. The full moon rose; the sky darkened into cobalt that quenched the sunset. More stars than Reiko had ever seen glittered like crystals. The cold intensified. How would she and Wente survive a night in this frozen kingdom?
Woods abruptly immersed the sled. The moonlight on the snowy trail didn’t penetrate the thick shadows among the trees. The trail was a tunnel roofed by the starlit sky, a road to nowhere. Reiko was beginning to dread what she would find at its end, when a clearing opened ahead of her. Wente called to the dogs and dismounted from the sled as it coasted to a stop. The dogs barked at a hut that had materialized as if by magic. Reiko clumsily rose as Wente ran to the hut.
“What is this place?” Reiko could hardly believe that a man-made structure existed here.
“Men come here when hunt,” Wente said.
The hunting cabin was padded with thatch and blanketed with snow, a shelter from the cold. All day Reiko had refused to acknowledge the probability that the dogs would find Masahiro’s dead, frozen body. Now relief rushed through her. She staggered toward the hut, calling, “Masahiro! Masahiro!”
Wente lifted a mat of thatch from the wall. The dogs, still tethered to the sled, lunged at the doorway she uncovered, frantic to reach the quarry they’d tracked all day. Wente looked inside, then turned a somber face to Reiko.
“Not here,” Wente said.
Disappointment wounded Reiko even as she refused to believe. “He must be! He has to be! Masahiro!” She scrambled into the hut. In the dim moonlight that shone through the doorway she saw dirt mounded against mat-covered walls, a fire pit filled with cold ashes. The hut was vacant. Reiko sagged to her knees, too anguished to cry.
Wente brought the dogs into the cabin, and they eagerly sniffed around. Kneeling by the fire pit, she sifted ashes through her fingers and smelled them. “Hunters not gone long.”
Reiko supposed she could tell how recently they’d burned their fire, but what did it matter? Masahiro wasn’t here. The dogs barked and growled, worrying at something they’d found in a corner. It was a stack of floor mats.
“They smell boy,” Wente said. “He sit there, sleep there.”
That didn’t comfort Reiko. “But where is he now?” she cried. Against her will, she pictured him lying in a snowdrift, eyes closed, motionless. Yet she imagined his chest rising in slow breaths. The stubborn hope of saving him refused to die.
Wente left the cabin, and Reiko hurried after her. “We have to keep looking. Let’s go!”
But Wente untied the bundle of provisions on the sled and carried it into the cabin. “We stay here tonight. Morning come, we go.”
“We can’t wait that long,” Reiko said, aghast.
“Night cold, dangerous.” Wente unpacked the food, the bedroll. “We need warm, eat, sleep.”
“I don’t care!” Although chilled to the bone, Reiko said, “I must find my son before it’s too late!”
“Tomorrow.” Wente’s manner was sympathetic but firm. “Dogs need rest.”
The dogs lay on the cabin floor, huddled together, exhausted. Reiko gave up because her life depended on their good health. She helped Wente fetch sticks from the forest to build a fire. Wente struck an iron fragment against a quartz stone. Sparks ignited wood dust. She lit a wick in a ceramic oil lamp and set the lamp on the edge of the fire pit. Desolate, Reiko stared at the floor. The lamp’s flame illuminated grimy black patterns on the mat, from spilled ashes. They looked almost like written characters…
Wente started to walk across them. Reiko cried “Wait! Don’t!” and pointed at the floor. “It’s another message from my son. He wrote it in ashes.” She read: “Mama, Papa, I met some nice native hunters. I’m going home with them to their village. Masahiro.”
A huge, blissful relief overwhelmed Reiko. Her nightmarish picture of Masahiro dying in the snow changed to a happy scene of him fed, protected, and accompanied to a safe place by natives. He’d cheated death again!
“Village not far,” Wente said. “We get there tomorrow.”
She built a little fire and fed the dogs, who soon fell asleep. Reiko and Wente drank hot herb tea and ate soup made from lily-root starch dumplings and dried salmon. The food, the bright, crackling fire, and the snoring dogs soothed Reiko, as did the certainty of seeing Masahiro tomorrow. Although the cabin was far from warm enough, she fell into a snug, contented doze. But Wente was restless; she kept going to the door and peeking at the night.
“What’s the matter?” A danger that hadn’t previously occurred to Reiko now scared her fully awake. “Are there bears outside?”
Wente shook her head and sat down, but she had a tense, listening air. A moment later she was up again for another peek.