faint
orange line across the horizon. The camera flash highlighted the
contrast between the tan lines on their naked torsos and the pale
skin of their breasts. There was another picture of Westmann in
the water with them, his face flushed with alcohol and his eyes
slightly crossed. He had an expression on his face that suggested
that the lights were on but no one was home.
“Ick,” I said out loud to no one in particular.
Westmann’s party life wasn’t what I was interested in. I was
looking for clues about how he thought and how he worked.
Eventually, I grew adept at filtering out the more personal
stuff and focusing on the entries dealing with writing. At first
glance, there wasn’t much here that related to his old books. His
recent journal notes suggested that he had developed a fascina-
tion with the indigenous peoples of the American Southwest,
their relation to the land and their expressions of spirituality.
The notes were a jumble of reflections on sand paintings, the
Kachina, vision quests, and anything else he could grab at.
There were copies of maps folded in the latest volumes.
By evening, I’d come away with the impression of a man
82
Kage
who had long put aside his early interests and was in the throes
of a new intellectual passion. He didn’t seem worried about
a visit from Asian assassins bent on revenging a decades-old
betrayal of secret lore. He was interested in sweat lodges and
mystic chants and figuring out a way to tap into the American
fascination with the generically exotic.
In other words, he was still a shyster. A talented guy with
a keen eye and an ear well tuned to the pitch of popular cul-
ture, but a shyster nonetheless. This was not a revelation to
me. There was little in the journals to pique my interest. Until
the entries that began to mention the help Westmann received
from a guide in the ways of the desert: Xochi.
Was reading this stuff technically connected to what I was
getting paid to do? No. I hadn’t finished my research, but I was
coming to some conclusions. Westmann mostly seemed pretty
sad to me: a person always trying to work the angles, in search
of things not for the joy of discovery, but because the process
led him to other things: notoriety, women, a good buzz. But
that wasn’t what was holding my attention. I couldn’t let go of
the question about the attack in the desert, or why Lori West-
mann’s desert guide Xochi was taking an interest in me.
Xochi. Did he hide the existence of Westmann’s retreat
from Lori to protect her mental image of her father? Or was
he playing some other angle? Perhaps there was a value to the
journals that I didn’t understand.
Looking back, maybe I shouldn’t have read the journals.
But I had a sense that somewhere in these pages, there were
answers for me. And besides, part of me really hated the type of
shyster-scholar that Westmann had become. If I was going to
research him, I wanted to uncover the truth and not whatever
Lori Westmann was trying to peddle. Finally, I remembered
83
John Donohue
Yamashita’s admonition: in the warrior’s life there are two
things: intention and results.
I spent some hours working the copy machine in the
library, placed the original journals back where I had found
them, then closed up and headed back to town. I had an order
from Yamashita to obey.
Hasegawa Sensei was probably in his early forties. He had a
bristly salt and pepper mustache and short dark hair with some
silver on the sides. His torso was thick and his handshake was
powerful.
“Hey, Dr. Burke,” he said. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Steve
Hasegawa. We got a call that you might drop by.” Sansei , I
thought: at least a third generation Japanese American.
I smiled at him. He had good presence; the body relaxed yet
fit looking, his face open and friendly. “My sensei doesn’t want
me getting rusty while I’m out here for a while on a consulting
job,” I
orange line across the horizon. The camera flash highlighted the
contrast between the tan lines on their naked torsos and the pale
skin of their breasts. There was another picture of Westmann in
the water with them, his face flushed with alcohol and his eyes
slightly crossed. He had an expression on his face that suggested
that the lights were on but no one was home.
“Ick,” I said out loud to no one in particular.
Westmann’s party life wasn’t what I was interested in. I was
looking for clues about how he thought and how he worked.
Eventually, I grew adept at filtering out the more personal
stuff and focusing on the entries dealing with writing. At first
glance, there wasn’t much here that related to his old books. His
recent journal notes suggested that he had developed a fascina-
tion with the indigenous peoples of the American Southwest,
their relation to the land and their expressions of spirituality.
The notes were a jumble of reflections on sand paintings, the
Kachina, vision quests, and anything else he could grab at.
There were copies of maps folded in the latest volumes.
By evening, I’d come away with the impression of a man
82
Kage
who had long put aside his early interests and was in the throes
of a new intellectual passion. He didn’t seem worried about
a visit from Asian assassins bent on revenging a decades-old
betrayal of secret lore. He was interested in sweat lodges and
mystic chants and figuring out a way to tap into the American
fascination with the generically exotic.
In other words, he was still a shyster. A talented guy with
a keen eye and an ear well tuned to the pitch of popular cul-
ture, but a shyster nonetheless. This was not a revelation to
me. There was little in the journals to pique my interest. Until
the entries that began to mention the help Westmann received
from a guide in the ways of the desert: Xochi.
Was reading this stuff technically connected to what I was
getting paid to do? No. I hadn’t finished my research, but I was
coming to some conclusions. Westmann mostly seemed pretty
sad to me: a person always trying to work the angles, in search
of things not for the joy of discovery, but because the process
led him to other things: notoriety, women, a good buzz. But
that wasn’t what was holding my attention. I couldn’t let go of
the question about the attack in the desert, or why Lori West-
mann’s desert guide Xochi was taking an interest in me.
Xochi. Did he hide the existence of Westmann’s retreat
from Lori to protect her mental image of her father? Or was
he playing some other angle? Perhaps there was a value to the
journals that I didn’t understand.
Looking back, maybe I shouldn’t have read the journals.
But I had a sense that somewhere in these pages, there were
answers for me. And besides, part of me really hated the type of
shyster-scholar that Westmann had become. If I was going to
research him, I wanted to uncover the truth and not whatever
Lori Westmann was trying to peddle. Finally, I remembered
83
John Donohue
Yamashita’s admonition: in the warrior’s life there are two
things: intention and results.
I spent some hours working the copy machine in the
library, placed the original journals back where I had found
them, then closed up and headed back to town. I had an order
from Yamashita to obey.
Hasegawa Sensei was probably in his early forties. He had a
bristly salt and pepper mustache and short dark hair with some
silver on the sides. His torso was thick and his handshake was
powerful.
“Hey, Dr. Burke,” he said. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Steve
Hasegawa. We got a call that you might drop by.” Sansei , I
thought: at least a third generation Japanese American.
I smiled at him. He had good presence; the body relaxed yet
fit looking, his face open and friendly. “My sensei doesn’t want
me getting rusty while I’m out here for a while on a consulting
job,” I
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