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Part 1
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"Is tracking a single kunoichi really THAT dangerous?" Anna asked with a shiver. Pat looked at her grimly. "She has us outnumbered one to 47," she said. "We may need reinforcements." ***************************** With every
step he took, the small puncture wound in his heel throbbed with
pain. Maximus, used as he was to living with physical pain, was
unable to will himself to ignore this slight injury. Whenever his
left boot came down upon the field, the pain seemed to shoot up his
leg, finding its way to his heart. From there, it sent such a
mixture of signals up his synapses to his tired brain, that his
vision actually blurred from time to time with the effort it took to
sort them, to make sense of them. Joimus had caused him physical
injury for the first time...ever...and quite deliberately. Yet... it
was not Joimus, actually, now was it? It was the kunoichi that Sid
had turned her into with his infernal plot device. Sid. Why did he still live? He rested his palm on the pommel of his sword. Why was the blade not soaked in blue? He was almost to the edge of the woodland now, his thoughts flowing like flooded little streams laden with too much debris. He had enjoyed the brief respite of apple pie. So seldom in his life had he known peace and rest in that manner. He knew, though, that apple pie was not to be his lot in this life... nor even probably in the next. He smiled rather grimly at the thought and turned, looking over his shoulder at the scattered grouplings that followed in his wake across the wide field. His eyes narrowed at the sight of Sid, who walked beside Bunny, still in his cardigan and sneakers. Did he think he had anyone truly fooled? Sid caught
the General's expression. "Bunny," he said, wrapping his
left arm more tightly about her shoulders as they walked, "I
don't think Maximus is fond of Fred." He sighed deeply. She, too, studied the distant General's face, his feelings so plainly writ upon his features. "I doubt he believes there IS a Fred inside you, Sid," she replied. Pausing, she looked up into his face. "I think you are going to have to prove it to him...somehow." Terry and
annsmac, walking faster than the others, caught up to the General
just as he entered the forest. Maximus was glad to see the K&R
agent and knew his help in locating the missing Joimus could well be
invaluable. Indeed, Terry pointed out how her tabi tracks led to the
fallen tree, then disappeared altogether. As the three of them
explored the area around the tree, Pat and Alex joined them.
"All I can find are deer tracks leaving from here," Terry
remarked, puzzled. Pat shook her head. "Oh, no," she whispered softly. Maximus looked at her. "Oh, no?" he repeated. "It means she has taken off her ashiko and fastened carved, wooden deer footprints on instead." She pointed to several dozen trails of deer tracks. "The woods are filled with deer, Maximus. We have no way of knowing which trail is hers." He tipped his head up, looking at the position of the sun through a break in the canopy of trees, then pointed west. "That way," he said. "She has gone through there."
"How do you know that?" annsmac wondered. He closed
his eyes and licked his lips a moment before replying.
"Home," he said, nodding slightly. "She will be
pulled there to find herself again." Pat and annsmac exchanged meaningful looks. How well they understood that Maximus knew almost beyond all others that pull, that need to go home. Maximus stood silently, looking into the deep shadows of the forest, thinking of Pittsburgh. It was almost exactly two years since he had been there, and then only briefly. Absently he rubbed the side of his jaw where Joimus' demonstration of her famous curveball had impacted it with such force. Yes, he now remembered, she had caused him injury that once before, but, as now, it had all been Sid's fault. The ball had been pitched, was in the air, when Sid had hollered, "Maximus!" from third base. He had turned at the sound of his name. Why wouldn't he turn? The calling of his name had once brought him back from the gates of Elysium. Sid had known he would turn, of course. Upon impact, he had fallen back into the arms of Berti, who was playing catcher. He was glad he had worn his black bicycle shorts under his tunic as usual, for some things are best kept unrevealed at such times. There in the woods, he smiled slightly, remembering the look on Joimus' face as she had run up to him, concerned so about him yet not pleased with the most unladylike expression Berti wore under her catcher's mask. Joimus had knelt beside him, and was kissing the welt on his jaw with great and tender care when Sid approached. She had glared at him, noting instantly the lack of any real concern in his seagreen eyes. A piece of broken baseball bat lay on the ground near her feet and Maximus recalled with almost a chuckle now how she had reached for it, concealing it behind her hand and arm. He knew what she intended and shook his head at her, saying, "No...not yet." Sid and
Bunny came up beside the log. Sid looked at Maximus' strange
expression as he stared into the west. "Ack!" he said to
Bunny. "He's remembering Pittsburgh." "What is he remembering, Sid?" Bunny asked. Sid sighed. "Probably the 'special headache cure' I gave him after the curveball struck his face." "You gave him medicine?" she pursued. "Well," he fumbled around for words, "it wasn't...exactly... medicine." "Oh, Sid," she said, shaking her head ruefully, "what happened?" "He just had a little, um, adventure...with the New York police department because he stole his sword from the museum. That's all. Nothing truly momentous." Bunny sighed. "Fred," she said a bit sternly, "you have got your work cut out for you, I fear!" "I
know," he replied, pressing his lips together, watching the
General. Had too much water passed under the proverbial bridge
between him and Maximus? Would the General ever
feel...differently...towards him? "Pittsburgh," Bunny replied, taking note of the delicious little smile that played around the corners of Berti's mouth at the thought of the city and the feel of the General in her arms. Bud noticed, too, and combined that memory with croutons, causing a deep crease to form on his brow. What WAS it about the General that affected the women so?? He looked over at him as the sunlight dappled his rust- colored cape and a slight breeze ruffled the wide fur drape. Sometimes he truly wished the LA police detectives had better costuming.
Joimus traveled swiftly through the forest, a good two miles ahead of the rest of the cast. She paused only long enough to extract a bit of cyanide from the apple and plum seeds she gathered on her way and to fill a pocket with rhubarb leaves. A wise kunoiche was always prepared. As daylight began to fade, she climbed to the thick canopy
of a maple tree and using her long sash, wove a spider web pattern
from limb to limb. Settling into it, she sighed, listening to the
night sounds coming to life all through the surrounding woodlands. "But I'm HUNGRY!" protested Ando, sitting on a stump and refusing to budge. "And it's dark," she added. "I can't see where the heck I'm going." "She's right," Himself said. "I think we should camp for the night." Maximus hesitated, wanting to press on, but as he looked at the tired faces clusted in the beams of the several flashlights they'd found in The Village, he knew they needed rest. He nodded in assent and set about gathering firewood with Cort and East's help. Joimus,
unseen high above them, had awakened at the noise of their approach.
Deliberately she jostled her small box of crickets to cover any
sound she might make as she left her sash hammock and crouched on a
large branch, watching as the camp was made. Maximus
cocked his head, listening to the chirping insects. He liked night
sounds. Having spent so much of his life in army encampments, they
were familiar to his ears and somehow comforting. He wiped a palm
wearily across his eyes. He was drained, physically and emotionally.
Joimus watched him, strangely moved by the perceptible sag in his
shoulders. Bud had
brought cans of beaneeweenees from the pantry of the yellow
farmhouse, and passed them around. "Ewww!" Ando said,
wrinkling her nose. "Is that all there is to eat?" Bunny
smiled and handed her a coconut mushroom. When Berti opened the
large jar of Jiff low fat peanutbutter right beneath the tree,
Joimus sniffed the air, aware for the first time of her own empty
belly. They piled pine needles and maple leaves into makeshift bedding and lay down, falling asleep as the fire died to embers. Maximus had made his bed a little off to one side near a clump of poplar saplings. Joimus waited and when all was quiet in the camp except for little snortching snores here and there, she shook the cricket box again and slipped down the trunk of the maple tree. Keeping her knees deeply flexed and letting her body flow smoothly, she scooped up the Jiff jar and popped it into one of her many pockets. As she headed back to the tree, she was unable somehow to resist going over to where the General slept. Silently she crouched beside him, letting her fingers flutter a mere inch above his parted lips, feeling the warm flow of his breath. She pulled them back, curling her hand into a fist and pressing it hard against her mouth. She wanted...something. A sudden pain shot through one eyeball as though a small vessel had broken. She closed her lids tightly and on their inner curves of black saw him lying palely in wheat, saw herself humming the waltz into his ear. Once again she looked down at him, wanting him, wanting nothing more than to lie beside him, pressing close. Why was she running from him? She shook her head. What was driving her onward so relentlessly? Standing, she took a step back, feeling as she did so that some invisible band of belonging strained and stretched from him to her. It was hard to move. It took such effort, indeed, that she lost her Ninja grace and snapped a small twig. He stirred,
turned slightly, and murmured, "Joimus," in his sleep but
did not awaken. Holding her breath, she watched him, her blue eyes
welling with tears. Her crickets chirped and he smiled in his dreams
as she slipped silently into the shadows, retrieved her sash, and
headed west in the moonlight. "It's gone!" Berti cried, the low beams of morning sunlight making their way between the trees. "What's gone?" Bud asked, concerned. "My peanutbutter!" she exclaimed. "The whole jar is...GONE!" Wanda looked at annsmac knowingly. "Joimus," was all she said. "Of course," annsmac replied, adding, "We should have kept it as bait." "Truly," Wanda agreed. Maximus lay silently on his bed of leaves, listening to their conversation. Then it hadn't been just a dream. She had been in camp. Somehow, even asleep, he had sensed her presence in the night. He picked his hand up then, letting it rest atop his own heart, feeling the beat of it.
She had
made the peanutbutter last all week by adding wild raspberries,
edible mushrooms and such to her menu. Now she stood on the ridge of
the long, narrow Blue Mountain range, looking southward across the
rolling fields dotted with neat Amish farmsteads. (Note to reader: I took this picture out the car window in May 2006 driving home from the NYC Russell concert just to illustrate this very moment in our story....this IS the ridge with the farms below it!!!) Reluctantly, she decided to venture down into the farmland where the corn was ripe and the orchards beckoned. Coming out into the first of the fields, she paused and changed her deer track tie-ons for those of an old, crippled man. She had gone about 6 miles, munching on raw corn as she went, when the outline of a large red and tan building loomed before her. The aroma that came from it was hauntingly marvelous, drawing her onward. Maximus stopped, the sense of her presence no longer coming distantly from in front of him. He looked at Terry. "She's changed directions for some reason," he stated, not a doubt in his mind. "Why would she do that?" asked Hando, mopping sweat off his decorative dome. Terry pointed toward the farmlands below them. "Food," he said. "Look at the corn, the apples, the large vegetable gardens."
"FOOD?" Ando cried. "Did someone mention FOOD?" The last of the coconut mushrooms had been devoured three days ago. The peanutbutter had been taken. The beaneeweenees were becoming truly disagreeable to her sensitive palate. Tree bark was beginning to look good. "I see a small town in the distance," Himself noted. "Do you think she went there?" "I doubt it," Terry replied, "but I think we should head in that direction and see if we can pick up some sort of trail." At the base of the ridge, they spread out in a long line, looking for clues as they made their way toward the town. "A horse crossed here," said Terry, calling over to Maximus.
"I see wheel tracks," Phyllis said, pointing at parallel narrow ruts.
"Here are some footprints!" Buggie cried. Terry and Maximus came over to the Floridian as she indicated the prints in an area of soft, brown earth. Terry
squatted, studying them carefully. "I don't think this was
Joimus," he pronounced. "They look like they were made by
a man and judging by the way the left print is turned slightly, I
would say he was crippled. Can't be Joimus." Pat smiled grimly, knowing the kunoiche were very clever in disguising their tracks. "I suggest," she said, nodding her head wisely, "that we follow the crippled man." Grouped
together now, they walked down a dirt lane past several immaculate
white farmhouses. The sudden shriek torn from an unseen female
throat was followed by the loud ringing of a large bell. Soon, over
a low rise, came several dozen men, clad in black, carrying
pitchforks and looking frightened yet strangely resolute. "Wh..what's
going on?" Johnny cried. They stood there, the afternoon sun glowing on Hando's black designs, the General's cape blowing in the breeze, the Captain's epaulettes reflecting goldenly, Biebe's bear hat starkly black against the backdrop of green corn, Terry's camo melting a bit in the heat, Sue recoiling her black leather whip whilst Himself straightened the scrap of cuff that, with the bit of collar, were all he wore north of his belt.
Ando, her Fuegan gown tattered almost beyond recognizability, looked at the approaching men. "WHY," she said loudly, "are they staring at us like that?" Marti
looked around, sudden light dawning. She began to laugh...and
laugh...and laugh, hardly able to stand. "L..look... at
us!" she stammered, her finger moving wobblingly from person to
person as they stood in the midst of the lovely Pennsylvania Amish
landscape. "We...we...don't exactly...blend in," she
chortled, running her hands down her own wine-colored velvet tunic
and straightening her cobweb shawl. "They must think we are
invaders from...." "RUN!" shouted Ute, pointing to a large red and tan building on the far side of the field. Joimus wandered down a long hallway. If her mouth had not been covered with the black Ninja windings, one would have seen she wore a large smile on her face.
"Mmmmmmm," she whispered softly to herself.
"Better than the Nabisco bakery!" With sparkling eyes she
watched the milk and sugar being combined with chocolate liquor. The
smell of it was almost overwhelming. The scrape of a large metal
door somewhere behind her was followed by echoing footfalls and
mingled voices. Quickly she scooted up a long ladder, crouching on a
high catwalk above the giant vats.
"It
CAN'T be!" Bunny was exclaiming loudly. "It
IS!" Sid replied, bursting with happiness. "It IS the
factory!" Indeed, they had been chased right into the loading
dock of the Hershey Chocolate Factory. "Who knew the Amish were such a war-like people?" Anna said. "It was Biebe's hat!" announced Hando. "They thought he was a bear." "Humph!" replied Biebe. "More like they figured you for a witch doctor." "QUIET!" bellowed Sid. "Er, I mean, let's all be nice and get along and I'll guide you through the chocolate factory. We will have fun... we will, and I'll see each of you gets a sack of candy after the tour." "What the heck is he talking about?" grumbled Bud. "I think he's trying to unleash his inner Fred," Berti replied, narrowing her eyes as Sid buttoned his cardigan and gestured to Maximus to come closer. "Look, General," Sid said, waving his hands at the series of giant vats, "the central blending operation." Maximus did take a step in Sid's direction, but the way his hand hovered so closely over the hilt of his gladius, one might be correct did one presume his thoughts lay in areas other than the processing of cocoa beans. Sid led them through the giant room, pointing out how after the blending, the mixture was dried to coarse brown powder called chocolate crumb. He was just about to explain how the crumb then traveled through a series of large steel rollers to grind and refine it when Maximus looked up and spotted Joimus on the high catwalk. He sucked his breath in with a loud hiss, catching Sid's attention. Sid's eyes followed the direction of the General's gaze. "I'll get her!" he cried, grasping at the sudden chance to prove the worth of his Freddiness. "No!" shouted Maximus, but Sid was already sprinting to the black metal ladder. Sid climbed rapidly up the long, narrow ladder, followed by Maximus...who was followed by Terry and Bud and Cort and Jack and Zack. Lachlan, Alex, Colin, Hando, Steve and Biebe dashed for a matching ladder at the other end of the long, mesh catwalk. Soon both ends of the catwalk were filled with characters, jostling one another while balancing carefully as they made their way toward the center where Joimus stood, turning her head back and forth between the two advancing groups.
"Stay there," Sid called to her, "and I'll get you down." She looked at him coldly. Did he actually think she needed assistance? The catwalk was suspended by a series of thick cables and with so many people on it all at once, it began to sway slightly. Joimus smiled, shifting her weight strongly from foot to foot, increasing the sway to more of a swing. "Stop that!" bellowed Sid and Joimus obliged him by a sudden reversal of her weight shifting which caused the catwalk to lurch violently. Biebe lost his balance, bumping hard into Lachlan who crashed into Hando, all of them toppling together off the catwalk and down into the giant vat of milk chocolate. Sid, too, lost his footing and fell, but he, alas, was not over the milk chocolate vat but directly above the conveyor belt down which the crumb traveled inexorably toward the series of huge steel rollers. He landed flat on his back amidst the clumps of crumbs, lying there slightly stunned as he looked down past his feet toward the spinning steel. Bunny's eyes went wide with horror.
Joimus looked back to where Colin, Alex, and Steve were on their knees now, creeping along the narrow catwalk. Again she made it swing suddenly and the three of them toppled into the second vat of milk chocolate. Now only one end of the catwalk had characters remaining. She could easily have run down the cleared end, but as she looked down into the wide, upturned eyes of annsmac, Berti, Sue, Juditha and Susan, something still very Joimus remaining within her somewhere grinned and she changed the direction of the swing abruptly again, sending Terry, Bud, Cort, Jack, and Zack into the vats where cocoa butter had been mixed with the refined crumb. Annsmac looked up at her, winked, and mouthed "Thank you." Bunny, though, was desperate. Sid would be completely crushed right before her eyes, pulverized into a puddle of blue goo with a few splinters of titanium and possibly some wires all that would be left to show he had passed by. "SID!" she cried, "Get up! Get UP!" He seemed mesmerized by the sight of the rollers getting closer and closer. "SID!" But he just stared ahead over the becrumbed tips of his shoes. She was frantic. As she ran along beside the conveyor belt, she almost tripped over a large janitor's broom left propped against a support post. Gripping it, she swung it up and over the belt, smacking him in the face with the brown bristles. "OW!" he hollered, turning his head to look at her. "Get UP, Sid!" she ordered. "Get up NOW!" He scrambled to his knees in the crumbs, looking wildly around for something to grab onto. He saw a small crossbar several feet above his head and with a mighty spring, leapt up and grabbed it with both hands. It was only after he had done so that he discovered that the crossbar was moving in tandem with the conveyor belt. Desperately he swung his lower body up, his legs barely managing to avoid the series of rollers as his butt cheeks smacked over the top curves of the steel...*ow* *ow* *ow* *ow* Once past the rollers, his fingers slipped loose and he tumbled into the last of the milk chocolate vats. "Whew!"
Bunny sighed in relief.
Marti was not pleased. Not at ALL! Jeff stood beside her quite unchocolated. She watched the other characters climbing over the top rims of the vats, plopping onto the floor, completely coated. Something must be done! Her eyes scanned the control panel. Ah! The emergency vat-dumper switch! A strangely anticipatory expression on her face, she flipped the switch, smiling as the series of vats filled with the different chocolate mixtures tipped, spilling their contents onto the floor. Jeff was swept off his feet by the small flood of chocolate, falling face-first into its flow. Andy, Jim, Nash, Egan, East,Jeffrey and Himself likewise had close encounters of the chocolate kind. Every male in the room soon sat spluttering in the sweet, milky goodness.
Every male but one. Maximus still stood on the high catwalk facing Joimus. Who knew that as a youth he had been the log-rolling champion of western Spain? The catwalk
stilled as their eyes locked. Her eyes, indeed, were all he could
see of her face. "I do not intend," he said, his voice
calm and level, "to get chocolate on my fur drape." "Do you not?" she replied, making the catwalk sway again. He smiled grimly (there was a LOT of grim smiling in this particular epi!). Franki, pausing briefly in her creative de-chocolating of Nash, looked up at the two of them, thinking how they looked quite like some high wire circus team. But things, milkier, sweeter things, required her immediate attention and she turned back to the pleasant, though very time- consuming, task at hand. "Joimus," he continued, "this must stop." "Must it?" she rejoined, turning his words yet again into a question. "You know," Maximus stated, "that I will follow you through all the world."
She knew, and so her eyes sought out a higher crossbar. With a leap that sent the catwalk sideways, she swung herself up and over the bar, crashing tabi boot-first through a skylight and onto the roof. Maximus had been taken off guard by her sudden movement, lost his balance, and hung by his hands from the catwalk as it jerked back and forth. Looking down at him through the broken skylight, she called, "Only if I leave a trail you can follow, Maximus. Only then." And she was
gone. Gritting his teeth, he managed to hoist himself back up onto
the catwalk and lay there a while, watching the clouds float past
above the jagged glass.
Next
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