Westward Lies the Sun Chapter

Westward Lies the Sun A novel by Robert H. Kono Chapter One The day was calm on Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains, a two-hour plus drive from Redondo Beach, California. A slight breeze blew in from the west but hardly stirred the surface of the water. The sky was cloudless and the sun shone warmly on the lake and surrounding landscape—the mountains, trees, the small town of Big Bear. It was early summer, too early for the main crowd of tourists to come flocking to the lake but not too early for good fishing. Greg Sonoda, a Sansei Japanese American, sat in the boat with his two young sons, Brian and Craig who were twelve and ten. Greg had stopped the boat near the shoreline to eat their lunch. As they munched on their sandwiches, they watched an osprey circle overhead, then plunge into the water to scoop up a trout. “He caught his lunch,” observed Brian. “It was a big one, too,” Craig said. “And it looks like the kind of trout we’ll be catching as soon as we finish eating,” said Greg. “Are we going to troll or fly cast?” asked Brian. 1 “Both,” said Greg. “We’ll troll the greater depths toward the middle of the lake and toward the end of the day, we’ll fly cast the eastern shoreline where there’s bound to be big ones.” “Can’t wait to tie into a big one,” Brian said. “Me, neither,” Craig said. “I recall that Craig caught the biggest one last time we were here,” Greg said. “Yeah,” Craig said. “That was a whopper, eighteen and a half inches!” “You just got lucky,” Brian said, ever competitive with his younger brother. “The one I lost was bigger than yours.” “But you lost it,” Craig said. “You never boated it.” “Today I’ll catch the biggest one, you’ll see.” “Maybe I’ll get lucky again…skill is what counts, and I have the mojo.” “You’ll need your mojo when we go deep-sea fishing one of these days,” Greg said. Craig whooped. “Boy! I’ll catch the biggest fish you ever saw. When are we going?” “Don’t know—yet. Some day, soon I hope. Depends on what’s going on at the office. Hard to break away…maybe on my sabbatical, in the South Pacific somewhere. I always wanted to explore the South Pacific ever since I read Blue Capricorn.” Greg poured out some OJ from a plastic liter bottle and passed the cups around. As he was sipping his drink, he thought about the slander suit he was writing a brief on, how intractable it was and how becoming a lawyer had been a totally unexpected turn in his life. “I wonder if you’ll ever find the Masamune sword, Dad?” Brian said, referring to the conversation they had as a family the night before. 2 “I showed you a picture of it because even if I don’t find it within my lifetime, I want you two boys to take up the banner and look for it no matter what.” “What’s so special about it?” Craig asked. “It’s a family heirloom. It’s been in the Sonoda family for centuries and my father snuck it in when he emigrated to America in the early 1920’s.” “And it was stolen from us?” Brian said. “That’s right. While we were in the concentration camps, thieves broke into our house and ransacked it and somehow found the Masamune hidden in the wall. My father took pains to conceal it as well as he could but the thieves were too clever. They must have seen the boarded over area and decided to break in.” “It’s been a long time since you came back from the concentration camps,” Brian said. “How come you’re just now beginning the search for it?” That was a long story, thought Greg. He had initially given up hope. As the only sibling residing in the U.S., he felt it was up to him to seek its whereabouts rather than his older brother who was in Japan but despaired in the wake of discovering how many cherished things had been looted when they returned from the camps. Not only had they been incarcerated by their own government but the general citizenry had plundered their personal belongings as well. It was a blow that took him a long time to recover from. But recover he did with a vengeance. It took a sojourn in Japan to rekindle an enthusiasm for life and putting things in order. The idea of looking for the Masamune had been with him for a long time now, but it was only recently that he was able to finance the search. He posted a $10,000 reward for the whereabouts of the famous sword. He was just beginning to spread 3 the word along with photographs of the blade to the various dealers, the notable one being Samurai Sword International in San Pedro. In reply to his son’s question, Greg said: “I suppose it’s because I didn’t have the leeway to offer a reward for the discovery of the Masamune—yet. It’s a long story of waffling between letting bygones be bygones, the war, the camps, the ransacking, and recovering something of our family’s past. It’s a matter of dignity and honor, Brian.” “It may be gone forever,” Craig said. “You may never find it. What then?” “Then I want you to pick up the ball and look for it after I die. And you may want your offspring to do the same. It’s the striving that counts.” “What’s that mean, Dad?” Brian asked. “It means a noble goal is always worth striving for, even if you don’t attain it, because the striving is its own reward. Remember that.” Brian balled up the plastic sandwich wrapping and tossed it into the lunch sack. He stood up and stretched. “I’m ready to go fishing,” he said and picked up his rod. “Me, too,” Craig said. Greg finished the last mouthful and bent around to start the motor. With its growling sounds penetrating the surrounding stillness, Greg pulled up the anchor and pointed the boat toward the deeper water close to the middle of the lake. In a few minutes the boat was cruising along at trolling speed as the boys stripped out their lines. They were experienced fishermen, accustomed to both trolling with worms and fly fishing. Greg manned the motor and did not fish. He reserved the fun for later in the afternoon when they would anchor off the shore and fly fish. 4 As they were cruising under the warm sun, Greg’s thoughts turned to the slander suit that had been dumped into his lap. He had become acquainted with the prominent LA businessman, Henry Miyamoto, who wanted to sue a white man by the name of Dick Simpson for defamation of character. It seems that Simpson, a business rival, had started rumors about Miyamoto to the effect that he was the illegitimate son of a Japanese army general, who had been sought by the Tokyo War Tribunal for having committed atrocities against American POWs during WWII and that he was a degenerate playboy in Tokyo with ties to the yakuza. All lies, said Miyamoto. He was born in America and never even been to Japan. He wanted to take Simpson to court to clear his name. But the problem was that Simpson did not specify Henry—Henry Miyamoto. He merely spread the rumor about one Miyamoto presumably in the United States and Miyamoto was a common Japanese surname. It could have been just about anyone, in the United States, Japan—or the entire world. Being a business rival of Miyamoto’s, he apparently meant to slander Henry but that would be hard to prove in a court of law. And Henry Miyamoto was adamant; he wanted his day in court. Greg had tried to point out the difficulties to him but to no avail. There was bad blood between the two although they had never met and there was no common meeting ground, as far as Henry Miyamoto was concerned. Greg was low-man on the totem pole at Crossett, Bigelow & Tyler, a huge law firm based in LA with offices all over the world, and he was often handed the more onerous cases—much to his chagrin. He sometimes wondered why he wanted to become a lawyer in the first place but he knew why. He chuckled inwardly. It was his wife’s doing…her and her mellifluous voice. It was such a soft, gentle voice that Greg longed to match it with a face. She was a legal assistant at CBT’s LA office and he met her when he inquired about a 5 summer office job while going to UCLA. He got the job mainly due to her insistence. When he showed up for the interview, he met the voice and was not disappointed with the match. She was beautiful. Her soft brown eyes looked gently into his and there was a stillness of a quiet soul in their depths. He fell immediately in love with Caroline Lister. But…he had had to put the brakes on his feelings. This was the 1950’s and interracial marriage was not acceptable yet. His own people frowned upon it. There was the feeling that marrying a white woman only meant that one was trying to elevate oneself out of the underdog status…the snootiness factor.

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