The Phoenix Tree. Jon Cleary
Bateman was from a farm in Missouri, prone to seasickness and therefore confined to shore duty; but he was big and strong and he could wield a billy-stick with all the woundup efficiency of a corn thresher; he had broken more American heads than any Kraut or Jap ever had. He hated Japs, particularly because it seemed that he would never get the chance to fight any and he would go back home at the end of the war and have nothing to boast about to the folks in Pike’s Corner. But if Japs had to go on living, then he reckoned the guy he had been guarding for weeks, l’il ole Kenny Minato, was as good as any to be given the chance. He had come to think that l’il ole Kenny was a real nice guy.
He was taking a short cut through the alley, heading for a cathouse he had run aground on while on SP patrol, when he came on the Jap trying to open a car door. He was almost past him before he recognized that he was a Jap; he had taken two more stumbling paces before he recognized Minato. He turned round, fell against the car in his surprise.
‘Hey, Minato! What the hell you doing here?’
‘Nothing. I got a pass—’
‘The hell you did!’ He made a grab at Minato. ‘Lemme buy you a drink! When’d you last have a good drink, eh?’
Minato did not want to kill the big American, but he had always been swift in deciding his options. He flicked open the scout’s knife and stabbed Mate Third Class Bateman with it. He had a rudimentary knowledge of anatomy, but he knew that Americans were always boasting they were all heart and he took them at their word and stabbed in the general direction. Bateman died instantly, the best way to go, and had no time to be disappointed in the real nice guy.
The big farmer’s boy slid down on to the front fender, lay there for a moment as if deciding whether he should go further, then slumped to the ground. Minato looked down at him dispassionately. The war was three years old and up till now he had killed no one; he was surprised at how little he was affected by the American’s death. He had never expected to have to kill and now he had done it without compunction, as if it were part of his nature. There is a certain satisfaction in self-discovery, especially if you feel in command of what one has learned. Minato had no ambition to go on killing, but he knew that if he had to do it again he would kill without qualms.
He stepped over the body into the car, started up the engine and drove down the alley and into Market Street. He drove east out through Encanto and soon was in the desert, keeping his speed steady so that he would not attract the attention of a cruising police car. There was more traffic on Route 8 than he had expected at this time of night; then he realized it was mostly military traffic. But he took no notice of it; he was finished with spying here in the United States.
It came as something of a shock that he was finished in the United States, period. He had been here six years, at liberty more than half that time, and there had been times when he had felt himself becoming Americanized, a disease he had tried to avoid. But he knew how infectious America was; one could come to believe that all its propaganda was the reality. There was no discipline to the country, of course, but even that had begun to have its appeal; its vaunted democracy was riddled with holes, a political Swiss cheese, but it meant that anyone could rise to the top, something that was not possible in the Japan he had left six years ago. America had much to offer; it was a pity it could not be conquered.
Well out in the desert he at last turned south after checking the map that had been left for him in the glove box. He drove the Pontiac along a dirt road that wound between bare hillocks that looked like white buttocks in the bright moonlight. He had switched off the headlights and drove carefully along the twisting track. He stopped for a moment, switched on the car’s interior light and looked again at the map; then he drove on, certain that he was on the right route to the weakest spot in the long surveillance by the Border Patrol. He drove for another ten minutes, then switched off the engine and let the car roll to a halt. He sat listening for a full minute; then he got quietly out of the car and listened again. He could hear a night bird of some sort; it had an unmusical cry, like a short cough of despair. He remembered from his time in the camp in Arizona how sound carried in the desert at night; the highway had to be at least five or six miles north of him, yet he could still hear the moan of trucks as they changed gears to climb a rise. But he heard no sound of motors close to him. Unless the Border Patrol was lying somewhere amongst the greasewood and cactus, he was safe.
He went to the boot of the car and took out the cheap suitcase he knew would be mere; he had come to have a great deal of faith in Commander Embury. The suitcase contained a blue work-shirt, a pair of coveralls, work-boots and a woollen lumber jacket, all of them faded and worn; just the sort of outfit a farm worker would wear. He changed out of the Navy tans, then looked at what remained in the suitcase. Five hundred dollars in US bills and Mexican pesos, more than enough to get him to Mexico City and the contact there. He had always thought that Americans were far too generous with the taxpayers’ money.
He headed south, leaving the track, which now swung east, and trudged along a dry watercourse. Occasionally he pulled up sharply as yucca trees or, once, a small Joshua tree took on the shape of a man in the moonlight; but no harsh voice hailed him, no light was flashed on him, and after a moment he would move on. Low cactus caught at his trouser-legs and once he jumped in the air as a jack-rabbit suddenly erupted almost beneath him. The watercourse began to drop, then he heard the trickle of water and soon he was walking through tule weeds besides a thin creek that reflected the moonlight like shards of polished shale.
Then the creek ran out, seeming to disappear into the ground. He came to a deep arroyo, slid down its bank and fell over the sleeping figure at the bottom.
He rolled aside, dropping his suitcase and grabbing at his pocket for the scout’s knife. But there was no call to use it. The man he had fallen over sat up, grumbling at being disturbed; even in the moonlight it was possible to see, or anyway smell, that he was drunk, or had been. Two bottles lay near him on the pale sand and he smelled as if he had just climbed out of a wine vat. He was no danger to anyone but himself.
Minato stood up, then dropped down again with a sharp cry. His ankle felt as if it had been hit with an axe. Gingerly he moved his foot, wincing against the pain; he decided the ankle wasn’t broken but sprained enough to make him a half-cripple. He looked at the man and wanted to kill him.
‘Howdy,’ said the man, and hiccupped. ‘Who’re you?’
‘What the hell are you doing out here, you bum?’ Minato tried to sound as American as he could.
‘I live here. You new around here?’ The man leaned forward, putting his breath on Minato like a dirty hand. ‘Goddam, a fucking Jap!’
Minato was ready to kill him if he raised some sort of alarm, but the man just shook his head, almost dislodging the tall-crowned black hat he wore. Then Minato said, ‘I’m Nisei, not Japanese. A Jap American, if you like.’
The man giggled, took off his hat and revealed the thick dark plaits hanging down by his ears. ‘Only one sort Americans, buddy. Us. You ask General fucking Custer.’
Minato stared at the Indian, then looked around him, half-expecting to be surrounded. The man hiccupped and reached for one of the bottles. But it was empty, as was the second bottle; he threw them away with a curse. He sat in the sand of the arroyo bed, his shoulders slumped, looking ready to weep. But he and his sort had given up weeping years before: the struggle was long lost.
At last he looked up. ‘You didn’t oughta be here. White guys ain’t allowed on the reservation. Yeller guys, neither. We’re the last of the Apaches, western division.’ He giggled again. ‘The gov’ment tried to educate me once. They wanted an Apache bur’crat.’
‘Reservation?’ Embury hadn’t mentioned any Indian reservation. Then Minato realized he must have taken the wrong turning off Route 8; he still had to go three-quarters of the way round the world and already he was lost. He cursed himself in Japanese, then reverted to English. ‘A bureaucrat? You help run the reservation?’
The Indian laughed, more than just a giggle this time; as if with no drink left, he had decided to sober up. ‘I lasted a week. They said I liked the fire-water too much. They was right, I