Kuroba Asashin's Arc

Chapter 19 of 44

They ate at dawn and slept two hours. Kuroba woke them with a boot to each foot. He handed Ona her bow and told Jackie to leave both blades on the rack. "You can fight," he said. "You cannot eat. On the road, that kills you slower than a sword." Tish pressed dried strips and a water skin into Jackie's hand at the door and did not speak. Kenji stayed on the porch. Kuroba led them north out of the valley on foot, into the scrub where the horned cattle grazed in loose herds. They found a herd of nine by mid morning in a shallow bowl of dust and thorn. The bull stood at the near edge. Plated hide ran along the shoulders and neck. The horns curved forward. Kuroba crouched behind a low rock and pointed. "The old cow at the back. Left flank. She limps." Ona strung the bow without a sound. Jackie squinted through the mechanical eye and read the wind off the herd's tails. "Wind's wrong," he said. "They'll bolt before she draws." Kuroba nodded once. "Fix it." Jackie circled wide downwind on his belly for an hour. Ona did not move from the rock. When Jackie was in place he raised one hand above the grass. Ona drew. The arrow took the old cow behind the shoulder, deep, but not through the plate. The herd did not scatter. The bull turned. It saw Jackie first because Jackie stood too soon. The bull came at a run. Jackie went flat and rolled behind a thorn stump. The horns tore the stump out of the ground. Ona put a second arrow into the bull's eye from thirty paces and it went down mid stride, one leg folding under the other. The wounded cow was already staggering. Kuroba crossed the bowl in four strides, drew the odachi, and finished her at the throat. The rest of the herd broke east and were gone. They stood over two carcasses in the dust. Jackie was breathing hard through his teeth, one hand on his ribs where the stump had caught him. Ona was already crouched at the cow's belly with her father's short knife out. "Show us," she said. Kuroba knelt beside her. He opened the hide along the line he wanted and named each cut as he made it. Jackie watched with the eye. Ona watched with her hands. They worked until the sun was overhead. Kuroba showed them how to strip the plate from the shoulder and roll the meat in it to carry. They came back to the dojo at dusk under two loads of meat and one folded hide. Tish met them at the gate and took the hide without a word. Kenji looked at the blood on Jackie's shirt and at the second bundle and said nothing. Kuroba set his load down on the porch boards. "They can feed themselves," he said. "Now we can move."