text: Isei grunted as he rolled the last rock into place. He straightened his aching back and wiped his face. Then he picked up his gun, cast one last look at the small mountain clearing, and turned to go. Above and around him the tall pines whispered to the wind the sorrow he himself could not express. Only the slight tightening of his face muscles betrayed the pain of leaving, the hurt of the mound that hid the last of his children and his woman.
  
  He descended the mountain. Before nightfall he stood at the fringes of the cultivated fields of the tiny hamlet from where his woman had come. He turned and bowed to the mountain. The peak, white with snow, still shone a reflected red as the last rays of the sun touched it. He did not think he would see it again. In the growing dark and cold Isei found a lair among the roots of an oak he knew well and curled up to sleep. He dreamt, terrifying dreams of pale-faced ghosts wailing at him from the dark. In the night, in the cold of his dreams, he finally wept for his family, taken from him by cold and disease. Behind the ghosts he could see the impassive face of someone--something that should have helped but didn't: that looked at the dying children impassively and studiously. Isei clutched his gun to him and his shivering turned to a burning desire to know: how? why? The cold iron stuck to his clutching hand, and he fell into a deep sleep, his decision, unknown to him, already made.
  
  Isei woke with the dim memory of something calling to him out of a dream. He struggled with the memory. It was the face of his dead child that brought the dream back. Over his child loomed a massive face. Calm, peaceful, inhuman. It looked at him, a gnat-like human, and the bow-curved lips seemed to move with laughter. Rage seized Isei again as it had in his dream. He wanted to grab his child and run. He heard the child lisp "Miyako, Miyako," and looking up again he knew that he was looking at the face of the Daibutsu. Very well, the omen was there, but what it meant, he had no idea. He walked down the slope, heading south and west. Eventually, the path he followed, as paths will, reached a destination. The small clearing was well planted with sweet potato and radish, greens and a few small apple trees. It was being well tended.
  
  The farmwoman looked up from her work. She was weeding a tiny plot of taro. The big leaves nodded above her. Isei studied her remotely for a moment, then stepped boldly forward. She looked up, startled, then straightened. She had a broad, red face half hidden by the kerchief she wore under her broad hat. Her torso was bare and she wore a ragged petticoat that might once have been red, but was now a faded and mud-stained brown. Her breasts were erect and firm, stained and streaked with the sweat of her labors under the sun. He smiled slightly. He liked women with broad shoulders, the broader the better. And broad hips for the bearing of children. She made no move to leave when she saw him approach, merely gripping her small hoe.
  
  He stopped before her and smiled shyly. The smile, he knew, had won more than one heart before. At first she had seen only that he was a mountain man. His pants were coarse castoff weave, probably bartered from some farmwife like herself. He wore a doublet made from the skin of a black bear, the fur turned outwards. It displayed his bronzed muscular chest. Hung from the vine belt that held the doublet closed were a number of baskets cunningly woven from akebia vine. A heavy woodsman's nata hung at his side. Its plain wooden handle and sheath were well polished with use. On the other side hung a flask of black powder. In one hand he casually held a long matchlock. A length of extra slow-match was looped around the slim stock. He was bare-headed and notwithstanding the long hair bound at the back of his neck and his unshaven jaw, she saw before her a man of uncommon facial beauty. His features were regular, cheeks high and smooth. Piercing eyes under mulberry-shaped eyebrows complemented his hawk nose. Involuntarily almost, she smiled back.
  
  "You have been working very hard," Isei said, stroking some of the sweat away from her breast.
  
  She smiled but did not move. "There is plenty of work, and someone has to do it. My man is busy elsewhere."
  
  He chose to interpret it in the way he fancied. "Two can do more than one." He unsheathed his nata and bent to help her weed. With his energetic help they were soon finished. She straightened up and smiled at him, wiping her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand.
  
  "You are very sweaty," he said and deliberately, using his palms like sponges, wiped the sweat down her body to her waist.
  
  "Mr. sanka, let us go to the shade," she said pragmatically as he unloosed the ties of her petticoat.
  
  "My name is Isei," he said, almost primly. He did not like to be called by the epithet the lowland people used for his kind.
  
  They walked to the shade of the forest and she dropped her petticoat, then undid her hat and kerchief. He dropped his own clothes while looking at her. Her figure was firm and blocky. Her calves almost massive with muscle. She was slick with the sweat of labor and anticipation.
  
  She lay down on the reddish cloth, her knees raised and her arms spread. For a brief moment he looked at her welcoming black thatch. It was bisected by a long pink slit bordered by thinnish lips. He dropped to his knees beside her, kicked his pants off and moved his loincloth out of the way. His cock, thick and a bit short, jutted out of a nest of fine black hairs. He laid himself prone upon her and pushed mightily with his mantool. The breath went out of the farmwoman as she received his weight and she smiled happily at the treetops as he rooted between her legs. The smell of their sweat mingled with the salty female perfume and was borne away by the wind. The knob of his cock widened the dew-drenched orifice and Isei thrust in to his full length.
  
  "That is good Isei, that is good!" Her mouth was fully open and her hips glued themselves firmly to his. Her full calves intertwined with his own. He rose somewhat and started jerking into her in a broken drumming rhythm which he knew women liked. She Oooed frenziedly and clutched at his ass. The speed of his motions increased. She dug into him, biting at his sweaty shoulders frantically. Moaning incoherently he felt that her hips were triphammering back at him and his cock seemed to be swimming in a warm bath. He paused for a moment to savor the sensation.
  
  "Go on, go on you beautiful cock; you mountain tree you. Fuck me, again, again," she cried, staring at him with eyes rounded with passion.
  
  He obeyed and his cock triphammered at her, his nuts slapping against her moisture with a strange sticky sound. At last he began to feel his sperm rising. He fell onto her, biting at her nipples and neck and clutching handfuls of her large and muscular behind. She urged him on inarticulately and clawed with blunt hard fingers at the muscles of his back. Isei's juices exploded and he flooded her interior with his milky essence. The odor of male sperm was added suddenly to the breeze.
  
  Isei lay on her, his cock still jerking, and she started rubbing a finger between his buttocks, trying to stimulate him to another trial. She smiled as he raised his head.
  
  "You fuck good," they said simultaneously, and she laughed broadly, pinching his behind fondly.
  
  There was a growl behind them and Isei pulled out of the woman and spun around, groping unsuccessfully for his matchlock. The huge brown bear rose to its hind feet and sniffed expectantly, then charged forward. Whether they had disturbed the beast at its feeding, or whether the smell of the randy woman had excited it, Isei neither knew nor cared. He leaped sideways, groping now for his nata, the heavy square-ended knife-hatchet that all foresters wore as a matter of course.
  
  The woman squealed and leaped for a tree. The bear passed Isei in his charge and the heavy blade sliced down. The shock of the blow was greeted by a bloodcurdling roar. The bear spun and raked at his tormentor. Isei danced out of the enraged animal's way and chopped again. The blade sliced through softer belly flesh as the bear reared up for a crushing blow. One of his paws hung limply. Isei backed, fumbling in his pouch. He found the tiny clay shell that held his fire first, then the larger fire egg. The egg hissed ominously as he lit the match. The bear roared and charged again. Isei slipped the bomb into the beast's maw and danced away again. A long talon raked his side, a mere scratch. Isei turned and ran, the bear turned, though slower, and set off in limping pursuit. Two steps and the obstruction in his throat grew into a painful volcano that blew his head off.
  
  Isei looked for the woman, then looked at the scratch on his side. He could barely believe what had happened. Few men had faced a brown bear and come through it alive. Suddenly it was clear to him what he had to do. The capital of Miyako, where, as family legend had it, they had come from aeons before, would be his goal. There he would inquire of the Yakushi Nyorai daibutsu. His family dead of such a tiny thing as a sickness, whereas he, facing death, was still alive. Why? Resolutely he turned his face to the south.