Myeko returned and led him down a narrow stairway and into an outdoor bathroom in a corner of the garden. He stripped off his kimono and sat on a stool beside a cypress-wood tub where Landau and Randall were submersed up to their necks. Myeko dipped a wooden bucket into the hot water and poured it over Jessup’s head. With a bar of soap and a washrag, she scrubbed him head to soles. Lather clung to his body like white frosting. She washed him as gently as a mother with her newborn, and it was a delightful return to a state of infancy.

  A thorough rinse, and Jessup eased into the tub.

  He closed his eyes and drifted in the lovely heat. Over the past eleven years, he and Kenji bathed together many times, and they shared the same bed. He missed that intimacy, and being naked with Landau and Randall gave him a deep-seated comfort.

  Randall’s coarse dreads were slicked down like an otter’s pelt. Naked and up to his neck in water made him look like a different person.

  “At the airport,” Landau said, “what did you say to Patrick that turned him around?”

  Jessup smiled. “I told him what I was feeling. I guess he feels similarly, because we connected.” He paused and asked, “Do you think we’ll find them?”

  Randall said, “Confucius said: ‘If you sit by the river long enough, the body of your enemy will float by.’ Although I agree we should have a more proactive approach.”

  “It’s vital to keep searching for their ship via helicopter,” Landau said, “but we should find those people Kenji already treated. Assuming they’re living together, I’m certain he’ll try to join them. Find them, and we can set a trap.”

  “Jessup, Patrick, and Vishal can continue the sea search,” Randall said. “You and I can investigate possible hiding spots. We can start with monasteries in remote areas.”

  “It’s the most logical,” Landau said, “because no one would pay attention to what happens behind those walls. Someplace remote.”

  “I’ll have my staff compile a list of monasteries in a fifty-mile radius.”

  Jessup said, “Patrick brought a laptop. If this hotel has Wi-Fi, he can google it.” He splashed hot water on his face, loving this relaxing heat. “Have either of you given any thought to the kind of world our children will inherit if we don’t find them?”

  A deep silence hovered over their heads.

  Landau finally said, “The State Department has given this subject exhaustive thought. The pattern is evident. Fear will propagate. Suspicion of strangers will prevail. The world will reorganize into small governments with closed borders and very little movement between states. They’re calling it the Switzerland syndrome. And as for disarming the world, as fast as governments destroy guns, people will produce more underground.”

  “Perhaps smaller, more manageable governments could be a good thing,” Jessup said. “Looks to me like our government has grown too massive to be effective. Big money and greedy politicians have sure as hell screwed the rest of us.”

  Landau nodded. “No argument there. I haven’t respected a politician since Kennedy.”

  Jessup continued, “I’ve always thought the federal government’s role was maintaining a military for national defense and insuring a judicial system that upholds the constitution. If they disband the armies, why do we need a federal government?”

  Landau chuckled. “Do you want to take civilization back to feudal times? Stop trade? Let local governments decide on a judicial system or an education standard?”

  Jessup shook his head. “If we achieve a single worldwide currency, an electronic currency, then trade could continue.”

  “You’re dreaming, Jessup,” Landau said. “All we’ll have is chaos. Dog-eat-dog.”

  “The real power,” Randall said, “will be in the hands of the one government or corporation or person who holds the golden egg—Kenji’s formula. They decide who lives and who dies. They will be worshipped as the new god. And frankly, that scares the crap out of me.”

  Landau eased himself out of the tub and grabbed a towel from a stack by the door. As he dried himself he said, “You asked what kind of world we’ll leave our children? I’m not sure there will be a world for them to inherit. That’s why we must succeed.” He dropped his towel in the hamper and slipped on his robe. He opened the door and walked inside, shutting the door behind him.

  A vague regret filled Jessup’s throat: he wished….

  Randall tilted his head to one side. “Jessup, you look sad.”

  “Bathing like this is hard for me because Kenji and I had so much pleasure in the tub. I can’t help missing him.”

  Randall’s sigh almost qualified as a laugh. He drew Jessup into his arms.

  Jessup didn’t resist. He felt hard muscles under silky skin enfolding him. He closed his eyes and laid his head on Randall’s shoulder.

  The sunset bled from the sky. The night was clear, with a half-cut moon low over the mountain. Jessup could see the ocean through an opening in the trees.

  They stayed nailed together until the skin on Jessup’s fingers pruned. Then Jessup pulled away. With a start he realized that Randall’s eyes were big and soulful and more expressive than eyes had a right to be. “This is getting too real.”

  “Real?”

  “What we’ve got here is a handful of stolen moments. If we keep going, when this thing ends, whatever this is, we’ll both spend the next decade finding a flattering way to call it a mistake.”

  “You’re not giving either of us much credit,” Randall said.

  Jessup lifted himself from the tub. “No doubt you’d think that. But then, you’re the guilty party here.”

  They toweled and dressed and returned to their separate rooms. In Jessup’s room, Myeko knelt beside the low table with two place settings. On the floor, the charcoal hibachi sat next to the smaller table that held a tray of raw fish, eggplant, and mountain vegetables. Another tray held bowls of soup, noodles, and tofu.

  “Where’s Landau?” Jessup asked. She didn’t understand so he pantomimed sign language. Her eyes brightened as comprehension blossomed. She pointed across the hallway to Randall’s room, indicating Landau had switched rooms.

  He sat at the low table across from her. She prepared a cup of tea and placed it before him.

  Randall knocked and said through the door, “I’m across the hall, Jessup, if you need anything.” There was something in his voice. Jessup could sense his hand on the handle with his forehead pressing the door.

  “Nothing now,” he said.

  Frogs croaked outside.

  “Can I join you for dinner? Nothing more than food and a spot of sake.”

  Jessup was hesitant, and he stayed silent for a heartbeat. Before he could say no, Randall opened the door and stepped into the room. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Randall spoke a sentence in Japanese to Myeko. She poured two cups full of sake and held up the tray to serve them. Randall settled cross-legged at the table and took both cups. He handed one to Jessup.

  Randall held up his sake in a toast. They clicked cups.

  “I was about to say no thanks, but now that you’re here, I realize how much I hate to eat alone.” He drank his sake and felt his head expand with delightful heat. He checked the size of the ceramic bottle Myeko poured the drinks from and knew he was going to need a lot more than that before bedtime, because he hated to sleep alone as well.

  He closed his eyes, and a moment later he felt Randall’s breath on his face. He opened his eyelids to find Randall’s lips were only inches away from his. He stared into those soulful eyes, and his stomach tightened in anticipation. The cage holding back his desire opened, and Jessup sailed into those lips.

  He heard the off-key wail of sirens going off in the distance, its direction distorted by the growing wind.

  When he leaned away from that unfairly handsome face, he said, “Tell her to heat up more bottles,” and he felt himself blush.

  “Indeed. Are you still disappointed we’ll be sleeping on the floor?”

  For the first time in recent memory, Jessup threw back his head and laughed. Really laughed.

  Chapter Forty

  LILIKOI FILLED the bathtub with hot water laced with Epsom salts. Matt Reece settled in for a long soak. His muscles loosened. He tilted his head back, enjoying the heat and a full belly. His pores opened, and blood sluiced through his arteries. He felt something—Life? Hope? Courage?—stirring.

  The door opened, and Gran Kamamalu eased into the bathroom, carrying an armload of clothes and a well-used pair of cowboy boots. She wore a hat with the left side of the brim turned up Aussie-style. It perched on her head like a bird’s nest. He moved his hands to cover his private parts. Good God, he thought, first it’s kids watching me sleep, now this woman barges in on my bath. “Can’t a man get some privacy?”

  She dropped the boots beside the toilet and stacked the clothes on top of the lid. She straightened back up, hands on her hips. “Lordy, no need for modesty. You got nothing I ain’t seen before. I’ve buried two husbands.” She crossed herself. “You let me know if those boots pinch your toes.” She laughed as she left the room, closing the door.

  He was pleased to see the brown camouflage uniform like the men on the dock wore, snowy-white underwear and T-shirt, and wool socks. The only thing missing was a hat.

  The door opened again, and Gran poked her head in. “I almost forgot.” She pulled the hat from her head and dropped it onto the stack of clothes.

  Later, toweling off before the mirror, he stared at the bags under his eyes, the stubble on his cheeks and chin. He looked older, and tired. He was no longer the boy who started this odyssey. But who the hell was he now? Yet, somewhere deep in those eyes, he vaguely saw the boy who once dreamed of escaping the ranch to find love, who crusaded to save mankind from guns. The thought made him weary.

  Ten minutes later, he walked onto the porch wearing his borrowed uniform and carrying his boots and hat. Once outside, he stepped into his boots and set his hat, but he folded the brim down so it looked American. The shirt and jeans were a size too large, and he had to roll up both sleeves and pant legs, but the boots fit. Now he felt taller, stronger, ready for the day.

  Lilikoi waited for him. She was dressed in jeans, work shirt, cowboy hat, and boots, and she wore her blue-mirrored sunglasses. She handed him a tortilla wrapped around grilled fish and a cup of coffee. He was still full from breakfast, but after so many days of starvation, he couldn’t refuse. He followed her toward the corral, eating his food and sipping his coffee.

  “You wasted half the morning in the bathroom,” she said. “I was about to send in a search-and-rescue party.”

  He let it roll off his back. She’d saved his life, so she could say anything she wanted.

  “Who do I have to thank for these clothes?”

  “Those belonged to Ted.”

  “You mean dead Ted? Mr. Cat Chow?”

  “How many Teds do you know on this island?”

  The coffee suddenly turned bitter, and Kirby leaped to the forefront of his brain. “I won’t wear a dead man’s hand-me-downs.”

  “Then don’t. Tie a fig leaf to your crank and we’ll call you Adam.”

  They stopped at the corral fence. He downed his coffee and set his cup on a rail. They stood looking at two horses while he ate the rest of his tortilla. He focused on beating Kirby back into submission, rather than on his clothes, but his skin began to itch.

  “Let me introduce you to Top Hat, the horse I rode yesterday. She’s a purebred Holsteiner, and a fine workin’ horse. But she can be naughty.”

  Top Hat was a large, spirited horse, too much horse for most riders. It told him Lilikoi was a skilled horsewoman. Top Hat’s neck arched, as if she knew they were talking about her. She minced around the corral with a proud, borderline defiant gait.

  “The stallion is Kantaka. He’s an Arabian, part royalty and part desert whirlwind. Sword Bearer, out of Cairo, sired him, so noble blood flows through his arrogant veins. He’s named after the steed of Gautama Shakyamuni, the Buddha. After Gautama rode Kantaka out of the palace and into the forest to renounce the world, the mount returned to the palace riderless and died of sorrow.”

  Studying the stallion made Kirby disappear. He felt a lump form in his throat, which happened whenever he admired the contours of a fine but elusive horse. An exquisite stallion was always an emotional experience for him. All his life he talked about horses—hell, most of the time he talked of nothing else—but he had never been able to unravel his love of them using commonplace adjectives. To him they were an ethereal dream, to be admired but not talked about, because he could never voice the right words.

  “What a waste of good horse flesh.”

  “How did I know you’d be such a romantic?”

  He was awed by Kantaka’s self-possession. He had the slow and dignified steps of Bonaparte in exile, with his head held high, his nostrils flaring, and his black-rimmed ears pricked in their direction. Like Matt Reece, he was slender in the chest, but unlike him, the stallion had strong legs as clean as limestone. He was a sorrel, and his reddish coat gave off a golden sheen in the morning sunlight. His hooves kicked at the earth, his body shivered, and his lungs let out a rush of air, letting Matt Reece know he craved the freedom of open space after being cramped up in that corral. This horse needed a good, hard run, and Matt Reece found that he needed the same thing. The sheer idea of it whisked him into a space of pure silence, broken only by the pulse beating at his temples.

  “He’s got the fury of hell in his heart,” Lilikoi said. “Nobody can break him.”

  Matt Reece gazed into those large moist eyes. The horse knew men and feared and hated them. He sensed that Kantaka understood that men were there to serve him, that they were his servants, not the other way around.

  He walked to the barn.

  Coolie had followed them down to the corral, and now he whined and seemed torn between following Matt Reece or staying with Lilikoi. Matt Reece told the dog to hush, and the dog crouched near a fence post and waited.

  “Well?” she said to his back.

  “Well what?”

  “You claim you’re a hotshot horse whisperer. Can you break him?”

  The world was going up in smoke and she was worried about breaking a horse? Had everyone gone mad? But what else did he have to do at that moment? “I need you to do two things. First, lose those sunglasses. Second, lead both horses back to their stables. And I’m going to need more coffee.”

  “Answer my question, you little shit.”

  “And another tortilla would sure hit the spot.”

  He found the tack room and gathered what he needed—rawhide gloves, a gunnysack, two catch ropes, saddle blanket, hackamore, and a saddle. He carried it all back to the empty corral, undid the wire holding the gate, and slipped inside.

  A group of kids gathered. He waved them back a few yards so they wouldn’t make the horse nervous. He also found a fresh mug of coffee and a tortilla perched on the rail.

  He dropped his gear and stuffed his mouth with food while he squatted to sort it all out. When he had everything the way he wanted it, he took a handful of dirt and rubbed it over his pants, shirtsleeves, and chest because he assumed that Kantaka didn’t trust anyone who did not smell of the earth. The dirt held the tang of freshly plowed fields.

  He slid the gunnysack under his belt, took one of the ropes, and began building his noose. He moved to the center of the corral and asked Lilikoi to bring back Kantaka.

  When Kantaka raced into the corral, Matt Reece and the stallion stared each other down. A tremor ran through the stallion, and he shook his head with nostrils flaring and blowing snot. He trotted in short nervous circles.

  Matt Reece twirled his lariat over his head. He glanced over his shoulder at Lilikoi, who for once, was speechless. He was not altogether sure of what she saw differently in him, but it was obvious she now looked at him with new eyes. And how could she not? With rawhide gloves covering his fingers, a rope in his hand, and a stallion to break, he was in his element, a man with ability and purpose.

  He rolled his loop as smooth as butter and forefooted the animal on the first try. Kantaka hit the ground and kicked out with his hind legs. Before the surprised stallion could regain his feet, Matt Reece crouched on his neck and heaved its head up, pinning the muzzle to his chest. Hot breath shot up from those nostrils. Matt Reece smelled fear in those frantic breaths. He ripped the gunnysack from under his belt and pressed it over the horse’s eyes, and then he blew softly into each nostril while gently rubbing Kantaka’s neck between the jawbones. As he stroked that long muzzle, he talked in a low, soothing voice, telling the horse in Spanish everything that would happen next.

  Following Matt Reece’s instructions, Lilikoi retrieved the hackamore and fitted it over Kantaka’s muzzle and ears. She ran back to the gate, took two of the ropes, and made a slip noose, one in each. She hitched one around the pastern of Kantaka’s right hind leg and passed the rope to Matt Reece, who half hitched it to the hackamore. They did the same thing to the left hind leg.

  “What makes you think Kantaka understands Spanish?” she asked.

  “It’s the language of love. I’m forging an intimate relationship here.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, well, I hope you two play safe. Although I’ve seen him excited, and I don’t know where you’ll find a condom to fit him.”

  “I’ll bet Gran is real proud she raised such a vulgar smartass.”

  She laughed. “Okay. What’s next?”

  “Food.”

  “What?”

  He waved her back, and he stepped away from Kantaka. The horse leaped up, shot out a hind leg to run away, but being tied to the hackamore, it jerked his head back, and the horse lurched in a half-circle before falling on its side. He raised up, kicked on the other side, and promptly fell again. His eyeball rolled back to stare at Matt Reece, who stood above him, still speaking Spanish in a low, calm voice. The children laughed and began playing a game to see who could fall to the ground with the most flair.