Read Online Death at the Crossroads by Dale Furutani - Free Book Online

few coppers that were on the ground between them.
    The first man glowered. “If I find out you’ve been cheating, I’ll slice your guts open.”
    “They’re your dice and you’ve been throwing them. Look,” he said, pointing up the slope, “maybe the pup is coming to tell us that your luck is changing. Maybe a nice rich merchant, or maybe a succulent virgin!”
    “Someone is coming!” the young lookout reported to the two bandits as he slid to a stop at the bottom of the slope.
    “Of course, baka! But who’s coming?”
    The young man, Hachiro, scratched his head. “I think a merchant. Or maybe a samurai. I’m not sure.”
    “Fool!”
    “If it’s a samurai, let’s let him pass,” the man with the yellow teeth said.
    “No. Samurai or not, I’m going to recover my loses. Coming?”
    “All right. But let’s give the youngster a chance to kill his first man.” He looked at the young lookout, who now had an expression of confusion and fear on his face. “Take one of the spears. We’ll keep him occupied. All you have to do is sneak up behind him and stick him in the back. Shove hard. Sometimes you hit a bone. Got that?”
    “Are you sure … ?” the young man said.
    The bandit with the yellow teeth hit the youngster on the side of the head, knocking him to his knees. “Do you want to be a bandit or not?”
    Looking up with tears in his eyes, the young man nodded yes.
    “Good! If this is the life you’ve chosen, you might as well do it right! Understand?”
    Once again the youth nodded.
    The man yanked one of the spears out of the ground, and his companion took the sword. They started scrambling up the slope to the road, setting up an ambush. The youth, rubbing the side of his head, picked up the second spear and made his way to a position where he could circle around and come up behind the man on the road.
    As Kaze walked uphill on a long straight part of the road, he realized he could be easily seen from the rise ahead. Around him, the air was still and heavy, and the songbirds were not singing. That, by itself, was not proof that there were others ahead of him, but it served to heighten his senses. Although he didn’t change his stride or slow down, out of habit he listened intently and scanned the side of the road ahead. His alertness was rewarded with the sound of small rocks rolling down the hillside that formed the down-slope portion of the dirt road.
    He walked past the location of the sound. Suddenly, ahead of him, two men stepped out of the forest holding weapons. One had a spear and the other held a sword. So he was surrounded, although he wasn’t supposed to know it yet.
    “Oi! Hey, you!” one of the men ahead yelled gruffly.
    Kaze stopped, watching the two men closely, but not making any aggressive moves. When Kaze said nothing, the man seemed to grow agitated. “Do you hear me?” the man demanded.
    “Yes, I hear you,” Kaze replied. “It’s hard not to hear such a sweet voice as yours. And so polite, too.”
    The man frowned. He looked at his companion for guidance. His friend said, “Are you being smart with us?” He showed large yellow teeth when he talked.
    “I wouldn’t care to be smart with men such as you. In fact, being smart with you would be dumb.”
    “What’s that mean?” the one with yellow teeth asked.
    “As I’ve said,” Kaze replied.
    The two men looked at each other again, puzzled. Then the first to speak said, “Do you know who we are?”
    “Why don’t you tell me?”
    “We’re part of Boss Kuemon’s gang. We control the roads around here, and you’ll have to pay us a toll to walk on them.”
    “What toll?”
    “All your money, of course!”
    Behind him, Kaze could hear a shower of pebbles as someone scrambled up the hillside and onto the road.
    “Is that all?”
    “What else have you got?”
    “Aren’t you going to try to take my life, too? The one standing behind me is shaking so much that I can hear his bones rattle. Surely he must be