Ancient Illusions Read online

  “Let me explain,” Yamato said. “I work for a family, the Nakamura family, whose ancestor was a daimyo, an important position if you know Japanese history.”

  Jianjun had watched plenty of “samurai” films, and he knew daimyo as regional feudal lords. Samurai were their soldiers. “I know what daimyo are.”

  “The Nakamura family has owned their land for many centuries. They have found many possessions buried on the land—items that would interest an archeologist. We would like to offer Doctor Rempart the opportunity to come here to the Nakamura estate to study the daimyo’s treasures.”

  “How old are these items?”

  “Some are from very early dynasties, 700 A.D., perhaps. We are in Western Honshu.”

  Jianjun recognized Honshu as being the largest Japanese island. Tokyo was in the east, the important historical cities of Kyoto and Nara in the center, but he couldn’t think of anything much in the west.

  “I doubt he’ll be interested,” Jianjun said. “I mean, the guy practically lives in museums all over the world. He’s seen a lot of stuff from all kinds of dynasties—and far older than fourteen hundred years.”

  “But the family would like an honest, outside opinion on what their items are worth. They are hoping Doctor Rempart will be interested in helping them.”

  “I see.” Jianjun did see: if the family called in a Japanese archeologist, and the items were truly old, the government might confiscate them as antiquities belonging to the state. But evaluating items wasn’t Michael’s area of interest. “Doctor Rempart prefers discovering antiquities, not pricing what’s already been found.”

  “But many of the items have symbols from alchemy etched on them,” Yamato said hurriedly. “And we’ve heard that subject interests Doctor Rempart. And, possibly, some symbols are … may I say, demonic.”

  Jianjun sighed. Demons scared him, but unfortunately, they intrigued Michael. Jianjun had encountered enough demons last year in China to last a lifetime. He used to think that alchemy and the demonic had no relationship at all, but then he learned that alchemy was a lot more than some sorcerer trying to turn cheap metals into gold. Something far more sinister existed in one arm of the ancient practice: the desire for immortality, a desire that had opened some alchemists to evil and the demonic.

  Jianjun also heard the fear in Yamato’s voice. Clearly, more was going on than Yamato would say. “I’ll talk to Dr. Rempart about this. I’ll get back to you.”

  “I studied your boss before calling you because I had grave doubts of the stories I heard about him,” Yamato said. “I thought he might be a con artist or thief posing as an archeologist. But the more I learned, the more convinced I became that he is an honest man. I have also read that he prefers to be left alone, but may get involved if something interests him on a personal level. I hope you can convince him that this is an area he would find personally interesting. Very interesting, in fact.”

  “Personally? Why is that?”

  “If he looks at what we have here, I believe he will find it so.”

  “I have no idea what you mean, and I doubt Michael will understand it either,” Jianjun said. “But I’ll talk to him.”

  Chapter 8

  The next morning William Claude joined Michael for breakfast.

  “I’ve been thinking,” William Claude said. “The Chinese pearl that attracts demons must be a very dangerous thing to own.”

  “If such a thing existed.”

  “I’m sure there are forces that want the pearl,” William Claude continued. “Perhaps demonic forces. I’ve already lost one son to this madness. I don’t want to lose another.”

  “I’m sure you don’t.” Michael’s voice was flat as he leaned back in the chair and folded his arms.

  “I do care about you, boy! I suggest you bring the pearl to Wintersgate. It will be safe here. I have top-of-the-line security.”

  Michael understood exactly what William Claude most cared about. “The pearl isn’t what you think it is.”

  William Claude’s jowls worked as he tried to control his irritation. “What if something were to happen to you? Someone else should know how to locate it.”

  “No one else needs to know.”

  “Don’t you have an assistant, some Chinese whiz kid, who’s supposed to know everything? He must know how to find it.”

  “He doesn’t,” Michael said firmly.

  His father studied him to see if he was lying. Michael did all he could to keep steady eye contact and not give away anything that might endanger Jianjun. William Claude, he knew, could be a dangerous man.

  William Claude decided to try reason. “From my research, I’ve heard it said that the pearl is one of the strongest philosopher’s stones the world has ever known. With it, I might develop a means to immortality. I don’t want to die. And you won’t either when you reach my age. Together, with my knowledge of alchemical formulas and your innate oneness, your gift and affinity for all things alchemical, we’ll be able to do it.”

  “Your quest for immortality is unnatural and wrong,” Michael said. “You know it is, and so do I.”

  William Claude reached out and placed his hand on Michael’s forearm. This time, instead of feeling cold, the hand emitted heat and raw power.

  “Think well, boy.” William Claude said. His hand grew hot on Michael’s arm as his fingers tightened. “Think about how much you don’t want to disappoint me. You’ve never really wanted to disappoint me. You’ve always wanted to please, to have me look on you with favor, to have me care about you as much as I did Lionel. This, Michael, this will give you what you’ve always wanted from me.”

  Michael yanked his arm free.

  William Claude stormed into his laboratory. He was sick and tired of the obstinacy of his son. Did Michael really think he was that stupid?

  He made a phone call. “It’s me. Tell them they’ve got to step up the action. It’s not working yet. Time to push – a lot. It’s got to be bad. Something no one can ignore.”

  The excuses he was hearing only made him angrier. “If they can’t do it, I’ll find someone who can! They have one more week.”

  He hung up, fuming.

  After he calmed down a bit, he thought of a way he might help his own cause.

  Time to step up his own side of things.

  He smiled. After all, God wasn’t the only one who helped those who help themselves…

  Chapter 9

  Michael found himself in the library seated on a wingback chair and holding the letters of Lafcadio Hearn. He didn’t remember choosing to come here, or even walking through the downstairs hallway to the library.

  Nevertheless, he began to read the material in his hands, and soon realized he had discovered a kindred spirit.

  I ought never to have been born in this century, I think sometimes, because I live forever in dreams of other centuries and other faiths and other ethics.

  Michael often felt that way. Maybe they really were cousins.

  He had other feelings of connection with the shy, peculiar, peripatetic man who had lived more than a century earlier, including one that echoed a common complaint of his when Hearn wrote: The so-called improvements in civilization have apparently resulted in making it impossible to see, hear, or find anything out. You’re improving yourselves out of the natural world.

  Michael laughed aloud at that. Such feelings had led to Michael’s passion for archeology, for learning about the past and its people.

  He also felt compassion for the lonely man who best expressed himself when hidden behind the nib of his pen. Since Hearn had always expected people would find fault with him, and thereby abandon him and the friendship he offered, he went on the attack at the slightest provocation. With his vicious tongue, he often insulted his friends and acquaintances so badly they would cut off their friendships to avoid further confrontation or humiliation.

  Ironically, Hearn’s longest relationship resulted from his arranged marriage. Koizumi Setsuko was age twenty-two, fr
om an impoverished samurai family, when the forty-year-old Lafcadio arrived in Matsue, Japan. He had been given a job as an English teacher, but it quickly became obvious to those around him that he needed help cooking, shopping, traveling, and so on. A colleague set up a meeting between him and Setsuko. They decided that, in exchange for her taking care of his household to give him time to write for U.S. publications as well as to teach in local schools, he would assume financial responsibility for his in-laws. Despite its irregular beginnings, and the fact that he spoke little Japanese, and she even less English, he and Setsuko seemed content together, and remained so until Lafcadio’s death from a heart attack at age fifty-four in 1904. They had three sons and one daughter. Lafcadio even became a Japanese citizen in order to assure that his wife and children would inherit from him after his death. He took his wife’s family’s name as his Japanese name, and to this day the people of Japan refer to him as Koizumi Yakumo.

  Michael was thinking about the strange and melancholy man when his cell phone vibrated.

  It was his assistant, Li Jianjun.

  “I got a weird call from Japan, from a guy who works for what was once a big daimyo family.”

  “A daimyo? How feudal. Why was he calling?”

  “This guy, Yamato Toru, wants to find you, but I’m not sure why. He gave a couple of different stories. First, he said you might want to help the family, their name is Nakamura, evaluate old stuff they have.”

  “Sounds boring.” Michael got a lot of these calls. Most times, he directed people to contact the Antiques Roadshow, not him.

  “Yeah, I told him that wasn’t your thing,” Jianjun added. “But then he said you might find a personal interest in it.”

  “Personal? I can’t imagine. Did he say why?”

  “A lot of the items have symbols from alchemy. He knew your interest in the subject.”

  “Alchemy. The hell with that,” Michael said. After tangling with his father, Michael didn’t want to hear about it.

  “You never know, boss. The alchemy angle might be worth checking out. I never … I mean, you’ve never spent much time in Japan. I wouldn’t mind going there first if you’d like. I could look over the area, check out the family. Make sure they aren’t going to palm off some Made in China junk on you.”

  Michael couldn’t help but smile. He was well aware of Jianjun’s miserable home life. “Look, if nothing comes of this trip I’m on, we just might go there.”

  “You’re still at that dig in New Mexico, right?” Jianjun asked.

  “Actually, I’m in Cape Cod visiting my father.”

  “Holy cow!” Jianjun exclaimed. “After that, you’ll definitely want to go to Japan. It’s pretty much on the other side of the world—about as far from the old man as you can get.”

  A good point, Michael thought. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Chapter 10

  A dozen ranch owners filled the Telichpah Flat general store for a meeting with the county sheriff. Their ranches centered around the Salmon River which flowed through a canyon about five thousand feet deep and nearly two hundred miles long. When Lewis and Clark encountered the dangerous gorge in 1805, they turned away and headed north, following their guide, Sacajawea. Early fur trappers also avoided the Salmon River canyon, as did the nearby Tukudeka, Shoshone, and Nez Perce tribes. Not until the 1860s when the gravel bars of the river were found to contain small quantities of gold dust did prospectors move in to explore the area. Miners worked sluice boxes along the high-water line through the depression years of the 1930s until all the gold was mined out.

  A few of those explorers and prospectors filed for homesteads and were given deeds to create small ranches. Ownership was grandfathered to them and their heirs when the area became protected from further development under the Wilderness Act of the US Congress.

  Life was harsh for homesteaders in the remote, solitary land, and continues to be. Some say the Tukudeka or Shoshone-Bannock tribes were the first to use the name “River of No Return” since canoes that went down the Salmon almost never came back. Early Army Corps of Engineers guides who tried to find a path along it for a railroad, ended up declaring it to be the most difficult terrain they had ever attempted to cross in the US.

  To this day, not only is there no railroad along the Salmon River, but no roads at all transverse the entire east to west journey of the river. Access to most of the ranches is only by small planes or horseback, and their power comes from small hydro plants, solar panels, and propane flown in by air. Satellite phones provide the main means of communication, and bush planes handle most of the US and private mail services such as FedEx.

  But despite the difficult conditions and isolation of their lives, the residents found out about strange mutilations and deaths happening around them, and called for a meeting.

  “You’ve got to do something, or we take this into our own hands,” Larry Pollack said. He was a big man with a florid face, bald head, clenched fists, and a Smith and Wesson .44 magnum in his shoulder holster.

  “And it ain’t gonna be pretty,” Wade Cox added, then crossed his arms and spread his feet wide as he sat in a teetering chair. He glared at the others in the room, and they all kept their distance.

  “Calm down, guys.” Sheriff Jake Sullivan stretched out his hands, palms facing downward, trying to ease the tension. The Telichpah Flats location brought back memories of a couple of years ago when the general store was the eye of a media storm after the Boise State University group vanished.

  “We know about all the deaths that took place out here a couple years ago,” Wade added, “much as those of you involved tried to keep it secret. And I swear, something weird is going on again. Something I don’t like one damn bit.”

  “And we sure as hell ain’t gonna sit around and watch our neighbors get picked off one by one,” Larry Pollack added.

  “Nobody is sitting around doing nothing.” Jake had to shout to be heard over the grumbling around him. “And none of your neighbors has gotten killed.”

  “Yet!” A voice in the back spat out the word.

  Jake spoke louder. “The county wants to find out what’s happening out there as much as you do.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not ‘out there’ to us,” Wade said. “It’s ‘here.’ It’s home. You can’t deny things got bad two years ago because you were one of the ones lost.”

  “I can’t deny things happened,” Jake said, struggling to keep his voice calm. “But a lot of what you heard was rumor and nonsense. You know how the press likes to sensationalize every little thing.”

  “Like college kids and teachers on a field trip being killed?” Wade suggested with a disgust-filled smirk. Others nodded in agreement.

  Jake knew this was a no-win situation, mainly because the ranchers were right to be worried. So was he. “Let’s talk about what’s happening now. How many of you have lost sheep or cattle, or have seen any of these strange mutilations?”

  “Something killed two of my calves,” Penny Schmidt bellowed. She was a big woman, nearly two-hundred pounds of pure muscle. “And I know a wolf or mountain lion didn’t do it. I’ve lost sheep and lambs to them, and this attack was different. Ugly and different.” Schmidt was as tough as they came out here in a land filled with strong, rugged people. She had taken over the ranch when her father died, married one of the ranch hands, and together they kept it going along with their three sons. That day, her husband stayed at the ranch while she piloted their single-engine plane to the meeting.

  Jake eyed her as she spoke and noticed she kept rubbing her hands hard against her jeans, almost as if she were trying to rub something off them.

  “I also found a female hog torn up in ways that aren’t natural,” Don Grover said, then swallowed hard.

  “A sheep, mutilated, on my land,” Wade Cox said.

  Mitch Ivansen called out, “Two on mine.”

  Johnny Adesso waved his hand and when Jake looked his way, he stood. “My cattle dog, Sadie, never came home. It’s
not like her.” He became choked up and quickly sat back down.

  About half the ranchers answered Jake’s question, but all of them were spooked. Jake did his best to calm them.

  Ironically, most of the people there were upset because they feared Jake and the authorities wouldn’t believe that anything bad was happening, and wouldn’t help. But Jake believed them.

  People throughout the area were growing increasingly agitated and upset. Not only were there strange mutilations of livestock, but fistfights were breaking out in town, and a couple guys tried to slice each other up with knives. Even he and Charlotte seemed to constantly bicker and argue with each other.

  He didn’t know what was causing all the commotion, but his biggest worry was that the deaths and mutilations would move from livestock and pets to humans.

  Chapter 11

  Two days passed, days that Michael spent reading about Lafcadio Hearn’s life in Matsue and other parts of Japan, and how he ended up in Tokyo, which Hearn had called “detestable” because of its size and modernization. Michael could well imagine what Hearn would say if he saw it today.

  While Michael enjoyed learning about Hearn, his reasons for coming to Wintersgate had made no progress. Michael and his father had reached an impasse.

  His father refused to talk about anything but the pearl and alchemy. And Michael refused to talk about them. He would have liked to know more about the connection between his mother’s death and Irina Petrescu, but William Claude refused to discuss it further.

  It was time, Michael knew, to leave Wintersgate for good, and to accept there were some things he would never know. At best, returning here had helped him put some of the past to rest, and to realize his father had become pathetic with his unquenchable thirst for immortality. In the quest for the unnatural, even greater evil had descended on Wintersgate.