Man with No Name: A Nanashi Novella Read Online Free PDF Page A

neck down -- their flesh crawled with snakes and herons and scorpions and mythical beasts, all in hues of red and green and black. Except for Jiki; he leaped in fully clothed, and his shirt billowed around his chest.
    “My manager threw a party for me here in 1987. This was before your clan took over the place. There were girls back then.”
    The house servants had been shooed away by Koma, so Nanashi undressed himself. He unbuttoned his shirt. He folded his clothes and placed them on a bench. He wrapped his revolver in a towel and set it atop the clothes. The water was the temperature of blood and it lapped at his throat. His own needlework was intricate and expensive, commissioned to one of the greatest tattoo artists in all of Japan. The others, especially Koma, were jealous despite the fact he’d earned the illustrations by dint of committing more violence than all but the most aged soldiers of the Heron.
    Nanashi never truly enjoyed his profession nor its magnificent rewards. He was simply ruthless; during conflict, remoteness stole over him, as if a hole had opened in his heart. Blood flowed, ink flowed. Violence and Irezumi, vines on a rail. Seven years of mayhem had afforded him a second skin more glorious than the infant first. He fantasized about the effort it might require to remove those layers, needle prick by needle prick. He wondered how much of himself remained underneath.
    Everyone stopped when Muzaki, frightful in his nakedness, waded into the pool until he mostly submerged, a massive bullfrog, exposing only his eyes and sloping forehead. He farted and bubbles wobbled to the surface. Jiki screeched laughter, and moments later the clan surrounded Muzaki. Muzaki reared, spitting streams of water at them, gently pushing them beneath the surface when they ventured within the span of his meaty arms.
    Nanashi’s nausea intensified. He turned his back to them and pressed his forehead against the slick rim of the pool. He saw the American actor driving the sharpened pole into the giant’s eye, again and again.
     
    *   *   *
     
    Koma assigned Nanashi, Amida, and Muzaki to a sleeping chamber. Amida volunteered for first watch, having shaken off much of his previous drunkenness. He produced a deck of cards and offered their captive a game of Uta-garuta.
    Nanashi lay upon a mat in the corner, listening to the whispered recitations of each waka until their voices diminished to white noise. He dreamed of kneeling on rice paper in the ornate home of dearly deceased Uncle Kojima. He was shirtless and the room was cold, but sweat already slickened the hilt of the Tanto knife in his fist. Light flickered from candles, obscuring the faces of his brethren, who gathered around him in funereal silence. Uncle Kojima sat in a padded chair several paces in front of Nanashi. Uncle’s chair had been situated directly beneath a hanging lamp. The old man was dressed in a conservative black suit. He rested an elbow on the arm of the chair, hand covering his mouth. Probably to hide his smile. Uncle Kojima enjoyed pain and suffering. To his left was a small wooden table; on the table, a jar. Uncle Kojima caressed the jar; he slowly drummed his fingers on the metal lid.
    Nanashi looked down at the knife. He tried not to consider the jar as he folded his left hand into a partial fist, leaving the pinky exposed. He pressed the edge of the blade against the second joint and drew a long breath --
    -- he was flying over forested mountains, skimming treetops. Wind whipped his face and the light was flat and grimy. He landed in a clearing on a steep hillside. Moss-covered boulders strew the hill and continued into the brush. He took a step and something crunched under his heel -- a human skull. There were skulls everywhere; a vast, moldering carpet of them, and ribcages and leg bones mostly subsumed by the damp earth. Amid the bones lay rotted articles of clothing, backpacks, remnants of camp tents, tires from vehicles so old the rubber