Hokkaido Highway Blues

well—Iroha the Second, Shadowman—and they even had their own entrance ceremony filled with strut and pride.
    Here’s how it goes. Two bulls are led in on tethers. They circle. Their owners maneuver them toward center ring. The bulls make eye contact and, because they are basically walking testosterone banks, they immediately want to fight. You can see much the same ritual in any country-and-western bar. The bulls snort, strain, and paw the dirt, and then, in a clash of egos, they lock horns and fight. They bellow and push, twist and struggle, but they do not gore each other. (Though one did get nicked.) It is a contest of strength and willpower, and it lacks the violence of a Spanish bullfight or a Texas rodeo.
    The matches are grueling to watch: the bulls eyeball-to-eyeball, steam rolling off their flanks, their backs knotted in muscled exertion. Then, almost mysteriously, it ends. One bull suddenly loses his courage and breaks away, and the crowds—depending on which way they wagered—either cheer loudly or smile. (The ones smiling have just lost a fortune; this is how you show calamity in Japan.)
    Bull psychology is intriguing. Initially both bulls are aggressive, but wary. When one bull shows weakness and flees, the other immediately pursues. When it stops running, the other stops. When one squares off, the other does as well. And when two bulls are equally matched, the bouts can last over an hour. On one occasion, however, neither bull wanted to fight, and for all the shoulder slaps and cries of, “Yo-shi! Yo-shi!” from their owners, the two bulls just stood there in center ring and gently nuzzled each other. It was rather tender to see.
    The final match of the day was an epic. One of the owners was a woman from Okinawa, and news cameras were there to cover the event. She was the first woman to compete professionally—though let’s be fair, the bulls do most of the work—and she was also the first woman ever to be in a position to take the championship. The final battle lasted four hours. By the end of it the two grand champions were barely standing, their tongues lolling so low they were licking dirt, the sweat and steam coming off them like saunas. The scene ached with fatigue and something deeper than fatigue. It was will. pure and primal. Strength broken by strength and still strong.
    Then, dreamlike, one of the bulls swung his head away and loped off to the edge of the ring. The victor didn’t have the energy to make even a perfunctory pursuit. The crowd roared, for it was the woman’s bull that had won, it was now “Super Champion,” and the woman was ecstatic. She leapt and shouted and performed an Okinawa jig at center ring. People swarmed over the barrier cheering wildly. It was pandemonium. Through the crowd, the champion belt was passed along and then draped across the bull’s weary shoulders. The woman climbed up on top of her bull, and she rode him around the ring. A spontaneous procession followed her. Newsmen waved their microphones like wands, trying to catch a comment for their listeners. I followed the crowds over the barriers and pushed my way through the tumult of bodies, across the soft loam of the ring. The bull was in his regalia, surrounded by admirers. I reached through and laid a hand on his side; it was hot to the touch and it reeked of pride, power, and victory.
     
    * * *
     
    The next morning Uwajima was sane again. The ghosts had dissipated and the city was pale in the sunlight. I still do not know if the Uwajima of the previous day ever existed; travel tends to heighten one’s awareness to the point of delusion. Was it the same castle that had glowed like a lantern the night before? The deer, had they fled as well, leaving the woods to the tanuki, those half-mythic creatures of folklore and taxidermy shops? And what of the hunters? Had they grown up? Had they abandoned the hunt?
    On the way out of town, I passed the Grand Shrine of Warei where one of the gods honored is Ushi-oni, the Demon Bull, the central figure in the Uwajima Cult of the Bull. I stopped to pay my respects. As I returned to the street, I saw, across from me, another backpacker. It was the first Westerner I had seen since I left Minamata. He was heading in the opposite direction, and he looked just like me. Same haircut, same posture, same backpack. He smiled at me. I nodded. We passed.
    On another stretch of road, in another state of mind, it would be a singularly unremarkable occurrence: two