Girl Rides the Wind by Jacques Antoine Page B

girl, and quickstepped it down the stairs to see the bent old man.
    “He’s waiting for you,” she said to the housekeeper, and Hana bowed her head before scuttling back to the kitchen.
    “Heiji-san,” the old man said, bowing more deeply than she thought warranted, or safe for his back. “I am sorry to bother you again.” The little girl stood on the front porch, perhaps afraid to come back in after Hana’s initial greeting. Gyoshin took the opportunity to press a folded envelope into his hands, holding them between both of hers, as if afraid he would refuse it. She’d liquidated her savings the day before to raise the funds.
    “Hideki-san, welcome,” she said, as she guided him out onto the porch, quietly underscoring how unwelcome he really was there, despite her feelings. “It’s all there, three million yen. Will it be enough?”
    Old man Okamoto nodded under grey brows, eyes glistening. “Thank you, Heiji-san. The Taue-ki will be delivered next week.”
    “Just in time…”
    “Yes, just in time for planting.”
    “… and for someone’s birthday party,” Gyoshin said, reaching her arms around little Haru from behind and pulling her into a hug. “You can’t hide from your auntie Go-Go.”
    Just a year ago, this news would have produced squeals of delight, but now, at almost nine years old, she’d grown much more reserved, too reserved for the carefree childhood Gyoshin wished for her. Probing fingers eventually found a tickle-bone, hiding just under her ribs, and got the preferred response.
    “Eee-hee-hee,” she shrieked and squirmed. “Stop it, Auntie Go-Go.”
    “So, I can come to your birthday party?”
    “Yes, yes, yes!”
    For the next hour, Gyoshin walked with her niece in the woods that encroached more and more every year on the untended estate, and ran after her awkwardly in business shoes, and held her close when she caught her up. Could she find Taka-chan in her daughter’s eyes? It was practically a religious quest that she owed to her cousin’s memory – she was the strong one, the one to whom the charge of the family ought to have been entrusted. What she wouldn’t give to have her back now.
    On the ride over to the Okamoto’s farm, bringing Haru-chan home in the last estate car, she admired the preparation of the rice paddies along the roadside, newly flooded and ready for planting. The irony wasn’t lost on her, that what little remained of the family’s agricultural holdings was managed mainly by the old couple on whom Ojii-san had vented his wrath. The taue-ki would mechanize the process and preserve them from the backbreaking task of planting individual rice-seedlings.
----
    L ooking down from the end of Vulture’s Row, craning their necks to see down the starboard side of the flight deck, CJ and Zaki scanned the firing line, looking for Emily and Kiku. Sergeants Huart, Durant and Ishikawa stood behind a line of Marines and Jietai stretched out along the flight deck, also observing another range practice session. Every few minutes, Huart’s team ran across to the port side to replace the targets strung up between two lines, while the self-styled trigger-pullers reloaded and traded positions.
    “There they are,” CJ shouted into Zaki’s ear, even though all the firing didn’t produce much noise on the open ocean – it sounded more like salvoes of champagne corks than little explosions from their perch. “On the end.”
    CJ ducked into a nearby hatch and Zaki trailed dutifully after, skipping down ladders, and trying not to hit his head on a bulkhead.
    “Slow down, CJ,” he called vainly after her. “They’re not going anywhere.”
    Out on the flight deck, on the end where the target line had been set closer for pistol practice, they found Emily, with a few Marines hovering nearby.
    “I’m such a poor shot,” Kiku moaned, as Sgt Huart showed her the target sheet with only three holes near one edge.
    “It looks like you just need to brace yourself