67
Yamada property * September 16, 1943
We have to all agree,” Ava said. “No one will ever know about this.”
She poked the fire that was burning in the oil drum with a stick. It was so late, it was now early. The first hint of dawn had begun to glow, eerie and blue, in the eastern horizon. It was only a very slight glow, but it alarmed Ava nonetheless. She was worried they were running out of time.
They were all so stunned, it had taken them a while to get a grip on their senses, to figure out what to do, and then there was Kenichi—poor Kenichi.
Three of them now stood in a circle, watching the barrel burn: Ava, her mother, and Harry. Harry stood slightly slumped, still injured from his earlier fight with Louis, his spirit now broken even further by everything that had happened since. Something rustled in the bushes nearby. They all jumped and looked but saw nothing.
“A chipmunk,” Ava diagnosed.
She poked the contents of the barrel again. The fire was getting too hot for them to stand so close, the heat was radiating in waves, and it was beginning to feel like an oven. Good, she thought. We need it to get as hot as we can get it. When she was sure no one would be able to identify the remains, she would douse the barrel with water, and that had to happen before the sun came up, otherwise the white smoke of the fire being extinguished might catch folks’ attention. There could be no questions about what they had done. There could be no questions about what they were about to do.
It was not their fault—none of them. Earl Shaw had always had bad timing and a knack for trouble. After he disappeared, Ava had tried to help her mother track him down. All Cleo wanted was a divorce, but looking for Earl proved difficult—and expensive. The shoddy private investigator they hired traced Earl’s steps to the Southwest but said the trail went cold near the Mexican border. After stealing the flying circus members’ money, he managed to rack up even more debt borrowing from loan sharks. For all they knew, said the private investigator, Earl might be hiding from his creditors in Mexico, biding his time and possibly even changing his name yet again. After a few months, Cleo and Ava stopped looking for him. It seemed he would stay gone forever.
Of course, there were times when they occasionally looked over their shoulders—not only Cleo and Ava but the rest of the barnstorming troupe, too: Louis, Harry, Buzz, and Hutch. If Earl caught wind of the fact that they’d banded together and resurrected the barnstorming act—if he heard the rumor that Eagle & Crane was successful and had even caught Hollywood’s attention—well, then there was a good chance he might come back to try to stake a claim.
And, sure enough, Earl had done just that—right when Cleo and Ava both had let their guard down and forgotten all about him.
After they’d all recovered from the shock of seeing Earl standing there inside the caravan, Ava noticed two things. One: From the looks of him, Earl seemed more down on his luck than usual. And two: He reeked of moonshine.
“Lookit, you sorry thieves . . . Thought you were gonna steal my flying circus and put on shows without me, eh?” he slurred, confirming Ava’s fears. “This here is my goddamn caravan, and you been getting rich offa my goddamn plane, my goddamn pilots and stuntmen!
“The way I figure it, you owe me my cut,” Earl continued to rage. “’S’all I want, just my cut! Now . . . if these Japs gimme what I’m due, then there ain’t got to be any trouble, and I’ll be on my way . . .”
It was Kenichi who accidentally set Earl off. He chuckled—a small, almost lighthearted chuckle. It struck Kenichi as absurd that after everything his family had been through, after everything they had lost—material, physical, and spiritual—this white con man might think they were holding out, that they were secretly hoarding some kind of riches, when the truth was, they had been systematically stripped of everything, including their dignity. It was an unintentional laugh, the maniacal laugh of a man still grieving his wife and daughter.
“Think that’s funny, you old Jap?” Earl growled. He whirled on Kenichi, fists flying. Harry was still laid out flat on the straw mattress farther inside the caravan. There was an iron crowbar propped near the doorway that they had used to bar the caravan doors whenever Earl parked the caravan overnight in less-reputable areas. Cleo and Ava had continued to keep it there, forgetting about it, mostly. But now Earl knew all too well where to find it. Before anyone could stop him, he picked up the crowbar and brought it down hard upon Kenichi’s skull. Harry was off his bunk in a flash, but before he could reach his father a flurry of motion plunged the room into stunned chaos.
The terrible CRACK of the crowbar meeting Kenichi’s skull was quickly eclipsed by a louder, more earsplitting BANG!
For a long, terrible moment, Ava and Harry couldn’t figure out what had just happened. Then they recalled: the pistol. Ava had picked up the pistol Louis had dropped in the orchard and carried it back to the caravan, where she had set it down on the table.
All heads turned in the direction of Cleo Shaw. She stood with her back against the wall of the caravan, a terrified expression on her face, the gun trembling in her hands.
Earl lay in a heap on the floor. The bullet had caught him smack in the chest.
No one dared to move until Kenichi broke the silence, groaning nearby.
“Oh, God!”
With Ava and Cleo’s help, Harry lifted his father onto the bunk and tried to get a better look at the wound. It was bad—mortally bad. It was very likely that Earl had fractured the older man’s skull. Kenichi’s eyes were open and his lips hissed as though trying to speak.
“We have to get him to a doctor,” Ava said in an urgent voice.
Still moving painfully, Harry began to lift his father into his arms, ready to transport Kenichi anywhere that promised salvation.
“No . . .” Kenichi managed to form the word with his lips. “I am already done with that. They will punish Harry and they will take me back . . .” He fought to open his eyes and look at his son. “There is no medicine for us . . .” he said.
“But, Otōsan, you’re hurt too badly—”
“Let me die.”
The moment the words touched air, they haunted the caravan. No one spoke. Harry felt a small, excruciating stab.
“Let me die, Haruto.”
Harry was still half holding his father as though he couldn’t decide whether to rush him to a doctor or let him be. His eyes were dry and steady, but his mouth trembled.
“Please,” Kenichi added with an air of finality.
Harry relaxed his arms, letting his father lie back again. Ava came over and propped pillows behind Kenichi’s head, and Cleo—still with quaking hands—did the same. With no further discussion they agreed to obey Kenichi’s wishes.
Earl had blown in like a vicious wind. Now a vacuous feeling invaded the caravan, taking the place of the tremendous chaos Earl had caused. Earl was definitely dead; no one touched his body where it lay on the floor. All eyes were on Kenichi. Everyone was filled with quiet distress at the prospect of witnessing the old man’s passing.
It was, however, more difficult than simply deciding to let him sink into a dignified slumber. Kenichi was gravely injured, but he did not die immediately. It soon became clear he was in tremendous pain. He began to moan.
“I have opium,” Harry said finally in a quiet voice. “I got some from a man in the camp . . . a lot of it, actually. If something happened to us and we didn’t want to go back to the camp, there was always this . . .”
He produced a packet from his inside jacket pocket.
“We could boil it with water,” he said in a somber voice.
Ava took the packet, but Cleo was too quick.
“I’ll do it,” Cleo said firmly. “You keep him comfortable.”
Cleo set about making a thick, syrupy tea.
“It will be quick,” she said when it was ready.
Kenichi’s body was still in the caravan, hours after his final moments.
They had propped him up on the straw mattress and Harry had helped him take long, steady sips from a tin mug. He slipped away into unconsciousness, an angelic expression on his face. Harry gripped Ava’s hand. After an hour of ragged breathing, Kenichi gave one long, last, sibilant exhale, and it felt as if a spirit was truly passing, moving from the caravan, making its way out into the gentle California night air.
Earl was another matter.
It was Ava who had ultimately devised their plan. She took a long look at Earl. Then her eyes swept around the caravan and happened to land on the book Harry had given her: Shakespeare’s play, The Comedy of Errors. She thought of the names of their two original biplanes, Castor and Pollux: The solution was already all around them, she realized. She looked at Harry—Harry, the magician—and the idea came to her. The ultimate escape act.
The first step was to char the body, making it unrecognizable. They loaded Earl into an oil drum and doused him in kerosene. Ava insisted they remove his clothes first. Nothing identifying on his person, she said. We ought to wrench his teeth out if we can . . .
When she explained the rest of her plan, Harry protested. It was too much risk for her. But Ava insisted. She was taking charge again, just as she had taken charge when Harry and Kenichi had shown up back on their old property, having broken out of the internment camp.
She had a plan, and they would follow it.