Leadville: 300 Days Away

by Kara Skye Smith

  Half an hour later, the old lady begs another 'break'.

  "No," Matseidha tells her, firmly; and she continues walking without looking into the eyes of either the tired, old lady or the child who whines at her, worried for her grandmother's sake; but Matseidha keeps them trudging, slowly, up and over the mountain trail.

  The last fifteen minutes of the third half an hour are filled with groans, whines, and practically yelled complaints.

  "Fine!" Matseidha finally yells back. "We'll stop." The old woman hobbles toward a rock the height for sitting on and does so. Matseidha finds a long stick and begins to make herself a walking stick like the old woman's. Tenizia sits at her grandmother's feet pulling at grass with her fingers, cutting a slit with her thumbnail, and trying to 'blow' a whistle sound through it. Matseidha sits down after 'trying out' her walking stick and takes the lunch from her pocket. She looks through it.

  "Did you bring any food?" she asks the old woman.

  She nods her head solemnly, "A little."

  "Me too," says Matseidha.

  "Already?" the old woman asks her, not wanting to mention the word 'eat' until she has discussed this with Matseidha. She does not want the little girl to get hungry too early in the journey for what they have as provisions.

  "I am," Matseidha says.

  "Go ahead," the old woman says tossing her hand out into the air and drawing it back to rest on the top of her thigh. She wears a deep blue fabric over her legs and a brilliant gold around her mid-section. Matseidha tears her bread in half.

  "Here," she says to Tenizia and offers her a taste.

  "Thank you!" the little girl jumps forward and takes the piece from Matseidha's hand.

  "You want some?" she asks the old woman.

  "I have my own," she says, "I'm waiting."

  "For what?" Matseidha asks, the desperation she feels apparent in her voice.

  "You don't have to treat me like I'm stupid, you know," the old woman says, "this was my daughter's idea. I am doing this because my daughter asked me to. There was no other way, she said."

  "I see," Matseidha says, "I have also been asked, well, told, to do this; and I don't want to."

  "And now you have an old woman pulling you down, too," she says, staring at Matseidha. "Say it," she urges, "I hear you. You are not happy."

  "Okay, I'm not, happy. I don't want to leave and I don't want..."

  "To help us. So don't. Go! Please go. I don't want to drag you down and I don't want to listen to your bitterness while I am trying to keep up."

  "You can't leave us!" Tenizia shrieks.

  "Hush!" her grandmother quiets her, "Yes she can."

  "But the child -" Matseidha pauses.

  "She'll be fine." Matseidha eats her bread in silence. The little girl sulks, nibbling at her bread, staring constantly, watching Matseidha's every move with sad eyes and pouting lips.

  The three of them sit, in silence, only the sounds of the wind gently rustling and the sounds of the paper bag break the silence; until, foot steps along the trail can be heard.

  "Another group!" Matseidha jumps up. It is an old man. Alone. He carries a walking stick and stabs it into the ground as he walks, firmly, and quite rapidly. He greets the group of women, stair steps of three generations, with particular attention to the old woman. Concerned for her safe travel, he tells the women of a settlement, not too far off along the trail, a place where they can ask a bed for the night. He gives them a name that he knows, there, and as he walks away, Matseidha is filled with so much gratitude that she hugs the old woman and then the child. "Many blessings!" she calls out to him as he goes, certain that the many blessings are her own, both at this time and at the time of meeting the old woman and Tenizia. No longer bitter nor feeling burdened, Matseidha helps the old woman to her feet. The three, back on the trail, continue the trek, lighter of spirit; and, Matseidha is, once again, a blessing to the old woman too.

  The settlement that they reach, within an hour's time, is a camp of Resistance Fighters and their families. There is not much but a tent to sleep in, a warm fire and two hot meals. They are satisfied and have a place to sleep where they would not have had one, and from the site of all the guns stacked one on top of the other at the edge of the settlement, the women do not worry they will fear in the night for their safety from wild beasts nor intruders. Matseidha takes her sleep thanking Buddha, and the deities, thankful of the old man, and hoping for her mother to find the same kind of help in the bicycle messenger or one of her neighbors. Matseidha's last thought, before sleep enters her weary body, is of Tenzing, the red parachutes, "and whether," she thinks, "by some chance, he is alive."

  Darjeeling 2008.

  An old man, a monk, walks through a school courtyard. A very young boy weilds a stick through the air, at him, like a sword.

  "Careful, now," says Lhosta, "you don't want to get hurt."

  The child looks at him, so sweet a face, so intensely defiant a stare, the child fake cuts himself right through the middle, "Whcgk!" he says loudly, his stare unwavery. He asks Lhotsa, "Did you bring me my sword, today?"

  "You said this was your sword," Lhosta says pointing to the wooden stick.

  "No, silly, my real sword," the boy tells him.

  Lhosta is quiet, then he says, "Not today. But if you have one out there, I'm sure you will find it." This makes the boy smile with great joy. He almost laughs. He does a silly dance and pulls on Lhosta's arm. "What are you doing? I have work to do," Lhosta says and continues walking across the courtyard. The boy stands and stares, his sword tip touching the ground. He stands alone in the courtyard as Lhosta leaves him.

  Lonely for a moment, the little boy yells, "but I have so much to tell you!" Lhosta continues walking. The boy stands watching Lhosta from the back as he goes. As Lhosta reaches the edge of the courtyard the boy drops the sword-stick and runs, a dead run, as fast as he can toward Lhosta. Lhosta turns and looks at him, his expression intent. The boy stops, nearly in tears.

  "Will I see you tomorrow?" he asks.

  "Yes," Lhosta assures him, "I will see you tomorrow." The boy appears very relieved.

  He waves his hand, "See you tomorrow my friend," he says.

  And Lhosta laughs a joyful laugh, "I did not think you could make me smile today," he says, "I am attending the funeral of a dear, old friend. But you did it. You are very good at making people smile."

  "I made you smile yesterday, too," the boys says.

  "That you did," says Lhosta. The boy waves again, and Lhosta walks away.

  After the funeral, Matseidha approaches Lhosta. She hands him a long, velvet covered box.

  "Here," she says. "He wanted you to have this. He thought I never appreciated why he kept the old thing. It was his brother's, you know," she says and looks down. By the shape of the box and the mention of these words, Lhosta knows she has handed him a sword without having to open the box. Water collects in Lhosta's eyes, but tears do not form.

  "Ahhh," he exclaims, and grabs the box, bringing it closer to his chest. Suddenly filled with great emotion, he is reminded for a moment of the favorite lesson he recited as a young monk at the monastery in Litang, "I know just who would want this," he tells Matseidha. "It will make a little boy at the school very happy."

  "I am glad," Matseidha says, "at least someone can use it. He would have liked that," she says.

  "I know," Lhosta remarks to her, "I know."

  Lhosta carries the box with him as he exits back across the courtyard, anticipating the conversation he will have with the little boy bestowing the box - the sword - upon him. Smiling, Lhotsa thinks of how the little boy will most likely jump with excitement. Lhosta surveys the empty courtyard. He sees only a few pigeons which light temporarily down onto a bench, pecking at the fraying splinters of the wood, and fly away. Lhosta, weary with the myriad of emotions he has felt this day, the day of the funeral of his good friend, Tenzing, sits down on the bench to rest and waits for the l
ittle boy to reappear. Five minutes pass. Lhotsa watches monkeys play along the rooftop, picking at each others' fur and pulling at crumbled bits of tile off the ancient building's roof, now used as a school for children of Tibetan ancestry. A larger monkey stops, at the roof's edge. He points a finger and laughs, a loud, high-pitched laugh, at Lhosta who is watching him from the bench, sitting quietly and waiting, holding onto the box that holds the sword; but nobody walks into the courtyard.

  Another minute later, Lhosta, decides not to 'take this' from a monkey and chooses to leave. Glaring at the large, rude monkey, Lhosta uses his hands to push himself up from the bench. He groans at the strained feeling of his sixty-eight-year-old bones and muscles as he stands. He presses his hand against the small of his own back and bends his knees to pick up the sword box, resting it against his left shoulder. Holding it there, as his aging knees unfold to standing, Lhosta remembers how it felt to hold a gun. For old times' sake, one last time, on this day of Tenzing's funeral, Lhosta places the sword box at attention. He holds his hand near his eyebrow, stiff and rigid, as he'd learned to do in Camp Hale. He looks straight ahead, out past the courtyard to the pure white, rigid peaks of the Himalayas. He looks toward Tibet; he looks toward Litang, toward its nearby snowy gorge of the leaping tiger; and Lhosta salutes the deep, blue sky.

  "Many blessings, old friend," he says in a dialect from Amdo; and, for old times' sake, Lhosta 'marches', the way he had learned in Camp Hale, in the 'Dhurma' above Leadville, Colorado. Lhosta 'marches' out of the courtyard - the last CIA-trained Tibetan resistance fighter alive, the best 'Big Guns' fighter of the ST Circus platoon, and a dead-center shot every time; a simple Buddist monk, having - to this day - never killed anyone, having once survived a 'day' where only animals roamed.

  1960 Gangtok

  Danthra tells Tenzing and the men from a neighboring resistance camp that have joined with Danthra's troop for the day, "Stay at your stations! Stay!" He repeats the word, slowly and loudly, hanging on each syllable like the weight of these words and the troops ability to adhere to them, hangs on Danthra's mind. Code has been broken, once again, in the course of ST Circus and the struggles of the mission. Men have been leaving their stations, as supplies have been running painfully low. Homes and borders have been broken into, battle lines have been crossed and murading - to Danthra's dismay - has taken place.

  "I just did it to keep going," was one theif's excuse. It did not excuse him. He was beaten and he did not survive to enjoy the 'loot' from his murading. Danthra struggles under the weaknesses of the faction to keep everybody going, fed, alive, strong enough to fight and determined enough to stay and keep from running off into the hills back to the homes they came from in whatever order they may find them. His own mind drifts into thoughts of hunger while he thinks of what to say and what to do to give these Khampas back their passion for the resistance movement, the passion to set-free Tibet from Chinese invasion. The radios in the mountain passes along the borders of the Mustang territories are much weaker than in Lhasa, and since the United States has left them so 'alone out here' and 'hungry', Danthra's anger lessens his responsiveness to the radioed communications he once had with Mac and Antoine.

  "Supplies," he thinks they'll say, again, "are coming." Muraded three times, this last batch of supplies causes a twinge in his neck and belly to think of waiting any longer, or even to discuss it makes him hurt. That night, after the words Danthra does manage to say, instilling as much passion for the fight and determination to 'stay', he hears three men slip out of their beds, leaving camp behind to forage in the hills for whatever 'traveller', animal, or settlement they can find.

  Danthra makes a fist and pounds the bedding in which he lays, barely warming him. Two days later, Danthra, too, exits the camp, on the excuse of a hunting trip to find food and return. Tenzing and twenty others wait weakly at their stations or just hang around camp foraging for edible plants and roasting caught rodents whenever possible.

  After twenty four hours, Danthra has not returned and Tenzing tells the faction he will go and look for Danthra, asking them, as he imagines his brother would want, to stay at their stations. But, Tenzing does not think of any other words to say. He does not try to incite passion or a fervor for vengence in the men; he does not let his mind wander toward the question of whether asking them to stay is like requesting a death sentence. Instead, Tenzing without passion, recites the words he's heard before.

  Tenzing looks down at his feet while he says them, "Stay," he says, "At your stations. We can't leave," and then he does.

  1959 Mustang.

  The night comes down upon the three generations of women, as they sit among the rocks, waiting for the night to fall like they are waiting for a curtain - coming down late - after a play is over. They wait, avoiding each other's gazes, going over in their heads the day's events, silently determining which one of them is to blame for this bad ending; but, the curtain falls too slowly to avoid one last confrontation. Tenizia falls asleep, her head against the lap of the old woman. She is tired from the walk and from the tenseness of stifled emotions. Matseidha keeps quiet until the first veil of darkness shrouds the desperation in her eyes like sunglasses, a shield to her vulnerability. At the first dimly lit thought of wild animals, however, Matseidha turns her gaze sharply upon the old woman. The first words of blame shoot out, like an arrow, piercing the old reason that the three of them sit near the edge of night to possibly perish in the cold, dangerous darkness of the wild.

  "You couldn't have possibly thought we could make it through the pass taking that many 'breaks'. It's like you wanted us to be here, alone, at night, like this! You did this on purpose. You did!"

  The old lady groans, "I didn't. Now shush - you'll wake her."

  "I won't shush!" Matseidha stands and circles in the darkness the place she had been sitting. "In the dark, how can I even see to get away from you?!"

  "You won't have to. I'm going. I'm going to try to get back to the camp we stayed at last night. Here, take the girl," she says faking a lift of the girl, but not really moving her much at all.

  "You can't make it back. There is no 'going back'. You know you can't make it." "Well, I'm going to try," she says. Matseidha stops pacing and folds her arms across her. She looks smugly at the old woman. She waits. The old woman, pinned down by the weight of her granddaughter, the girl on her lap, does not move, but does her best to make it look like she is actually trying. This disgusts Matseidha.

  "We do not have time for an old woman's charades. We are at the edge of darkness. Will we freeze to death? Will we be eaten by wild animals? What shall I do while I 'wait' for you to fake your march into the dark and wild all alone - an old woman? Maybe you would like me to carry you? To where? Where shall I carry you, who is carrying this girl, to? The edge of the cliff and drop you off? That is all you are saying, and I don't want to. It is a waste of my effort. Just sit here, now, and I will shush, and you, two, just sit here and wait to be the meal of a big, bad wolf."

  "You are the wolf!" the old lady hisses.

  "Ha! Well if I am, I won't look your direction. Not even for a minute! I shall run into the hills, into my cave and starve for the night!" Matseidha does not laugh, but her voice sounds as if she might. The old woman makes an actual hissing sound at her this time. She is even a bit amused and turns her head to avoid a smile.

  Finally, Matseidha sits down, hopeless with no where to go, her anger softened by her own amusement, and Matseidha silently weeps. The old woman sets her to work, to keep her mind from the sorrow.

  "Gather stones around us," she says. "We can throw them if animals do approach."

  "Good idea," Matseidha says and wipes her tears. She scoops up rocks through the dark ground, the smell of dust rising as she gathers. This time, the old woman sets in. She too has thought about her 'monologue' since the curtain of darkness ensued, wondering if last moments of life were upon her.

  "I know why you're sad - you don't have a husband by
now," she starts. "That is not it!" she says, "I'm thinking if I must die, why must I die with you - old bag o' bones?!"

  "You see, you're bitter about it. You should have a man to take care of you. My daughter should have put me with a woman your age who had a man with her. We would not be in this situation if you had a man. A man would have started a fire, by now. Why didn't you start a fire?"

  "Why don't you?" Matseidha asks, her voice resolved to let the old woman go on without engaging her, finally, now that she has gathered her strength along with the stones; feeling, now, that she has some way to protect herself. "What else can we gather from right around here?" she asks.

  "I don't know," the old woman pouts, "I don't know."

  Matseidha sits on the flat ground and leans against a boulder, a heavy, round stone in her hand. She bounces it in her palm, feeling its weight. She falls asleep, grasping the rock firmly until sleep has relaxed her, clear through her fingertips. The rock drops off and wakes her up. She rubs her eyes. The moon, now high in the sky, shines down, but not enough light to far, just a crescent moon. The old lady is crying. Matseidha knows she does not think she can be heard. Matseidha, although uncomfortable, longing to lie down, longing to shift her weight, closes her eyes again, sitting still. She does not want to comfort the old lady. She does not want to take the little girl from off her lap. She wishes for sleep, to hurry the night, but Matseidha waits, holding closed her eyelids, for several hours, listening to the sniffles and mournful murmurs of an old lady, alone.