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Instead of packing thick sweaters and heavy rubber boots you fill your suitcase with ointment in case strangers’ knees hurt. Not very good, you could say, but it’s the best you could do, right?”
    I shrugged. I liked Leo, felt an intuitive trust in him; but about Garson-roshi, I desperately wanted him to be wrong. The whole thing had the ring of story-not-over. “But since then Garson’s changed, right? He—”
    The truck shot to the left. A red tree was sticking out into the road. I braced for the crash. Leo yanked the wheel; metal scraped but the truck kept moving. The windshield-blur was gone and I saw all the trees as trees . The blood-red Japanese maple stood in front of deep green redwoods and pines. I jammed my eyes shut against the looming great trees. I had to gasp to breathe. I tried to picture something safe—anything—green and yellow ducks on Mom’s old plastic shower curtain. Sweat coated my face, draped my shoulders. I dug my fingers into my pack; the harsh broadcloth scraped the tips. I swallowed, and swallowed again. I made one of those little glucking noises getting myself under control. Leo must have heard that.
    He assured me, “When we get the road paved, we’ll take out that maple. Rob’s opposed to changing the road, but paving only makes sense.”
    It was another minute before I could open my eyes and swipe at my forehead with my shirtsleeve. When I did open them, several surprising things happened, and so fast they took away what little breath I had left.
    First, a man pulled open the passenger door, startling the hell out of me. “You trying to kill me, Leo? You could have run me over!”
    I hadn’t even noticed the guy until now.
    Leo leaned over, in front of me, almost eye to eye with the stranger. “Well, if you’re going to stand in the middle of the road just behind a curve, you might expect something like this to happen. I nearly killed Darcy and myself trying to avoid you, you know.”
    â€œThat little maple would hardly kill you.”
    Leo gave no response, and when I glanced at him, he looked as if he didn’t think the point worth arguing. For me, that tree wasn’t little; for me, it loomed.
    The man Leo was staring back at was tall and straight-backed, with an angular face that could have been called handsome, imperious, or just cold. He wasn’t wearing a priest’s robe—no sane person would in this mud—but even without it, there was no question in my mind that this was the roshi himself. I had to admire Leo sounding so unintimidated by him.
    Then I got my next shock.
    The tall, fierce roshi grabbed hold of me and pulled me out of the truck.
    â€œIn back,” he commanded, with a jerk of his head toward the flatbed of the truck. “I need to talk to Leo.”
    My heart was thumping; sweat was still making sticky rivulets down my back, and I wasn’t anywhere near to coherent thought yet. If I had been, I would have told him to go to hell, roshi or no roshi. But the trees had turned me back into a quivering four-year-old. Humiliated, I stumbled toward the bed and began to clamber over into the back. I was so undone by the trees, by the near-accident, by him , that I couldn’t find words, couldn’t think, only knew I had to get out of the woods. I wanted to huddle next to the big bag of cacao beans and cover my head, but I mustered enough pride not to let this guy, this jerk of a roshi, see me that way. I sat on the bag and stared in the only safe direction—through the rear window of the cab. This panic was exactly what I’d been afraid of. No. Worse, way worse.
    Leo turned around and gave me a grin and a wink. I didn’t expect that; I thought he’d be taking this wretched encounter as seriously as I did, and his nonchalance made me feel even more stupid. His gaze held mine for a long moment, as if he was waiting for me to tell him somehow that I was