"It's a good name for this place," he says.
"Take some pictures," she tells him and hands him the camera. "I'm going to take a rest." She sits down, in the sunshine, among the wild flowers, under the looming figures of the jagged mountain peaks. She folds her legs and closes her eyes. Her hands rest on her knees. While the boy she wondered, sometimes in her life, whether she would ever have a moment like this with snaps photos onto her favorite camera, Mary Beth thinks about a moment, alone with Tiyo, long ago. She remembers his spirit, his 'differentness' from all that she had known before - from the 'sameness' of the girls in Leadville. And from him she remembers 'difference' with allure and promise of new day, instead of the crippling 'difference' that Stephanie felt from Leadville's seekers of the 'same'. An energy she saw, the first time she looked at him. Talking with him, and later in her life searching out places she'd never seen before, like the 'garden' she sits in this very moment, she realizes that to her 'different' means the excitement of something, out there, like this, that sure, she had never known before, but is worth finding - something with the promise that unknowing is not usually something to fear; and not something to be scorned. 'Scorn' was the only expression of 'different' that Stephanie ever knew; taught to her in mean lessons by Leadville's 'other girls'. A 'small town different' Mary Beth couldn't 'get into' and couldn't really get out of until she finally drove away, determined not to return, until her son brought her back - back to show him that Stephanie's different is not the same.
In the garden, the dhumra, Mary Beth says a prayer. A prayer that James Dean Micheal (as he doesn't like being called) Turpington will not fall prey to Stephanie's fear, instilled in her by the crushing girls of Leadville; but that he will open to this beauty of the hike today in many ways, open to trying something new and different; and, that his life will blossom, like a flower in this garden, taking him to the fullness of what he believes he can achieve and what he wants to do; and then, silently, Mary Beth forces herself to concede, almost through clenched teeth, that she can help him to this fullness even if what he 'wants to do' is to work in Leadville at Stephanie's bar. Mary Beth opens her eyes. Her son's shadow is cast upon her, as he stands, moving the focus ring back and forth, the camera held up to his eye. He snaps a photo.
"Hey! that wasn't fair," she says to him.
"Okay," he mimicks, "now a smile!" She smiles and he takes the photograph.
"Look over there," he says, turning the camera to the side. He takes a profile shot. "Cool," he says to her.
"Are you ready to go home," she asks.
"No," he says. "I'm ready to go."
Back inside the volkswagon van, driving down the Interstate, past the old pancake house, now called The Sizzler Steakhouse, Mary Beth tells him she is sorry he will never have a father. He doesn't say anything to this. There is just nothing to say to words like this. Instead, he looks out the window and is silent for most of the rest of the drive.
As she pulls the van onto the gravel out front of Stephanie's house, she turns to him and once again says, "I'm sorry. I'd like it very much if you would come with me now, and never go 'back in there' - never go 'back home'."
He shakes his head, no.
"But," she tells him, with one last try, "this just is not your home." "It is, but it isn't," he says. "It's the only place I've ever known." Mary Beth pushes, "I once said that too, about you, as I walked out on a cold, spring night with you in my arms," she pulls out a baby shoe and shows it to him. "I had this in my pocket," when they pulled you away from me. I was in the middle of putting your little shoes on you. I only got one on... I've kept it with me, the whole time, wherever I went. I sent you a letter," she says.
"I never got it," he tells her.
"I didn't think so" she says. "That is why, one of the reasons anyway, plus the fact that she called me your Auntie, that I want you to leave with me today, and never go back inside there."
He shakes his head, 'no', again. "I gotta go," he says and opens the door. Outside the van, looking in through the window, he asks her, "Next week? Mom? Another hike?"
"Next week," she smiles, "I'd like that." "Same time!" she yells out to his backside as he runs across the lawn onto the porch step.
Mary Beth starts the volkswagon and drives off onto the route toward the Interstate, through the mountain passes. She turns on the radio, and pushes in an eight track tape, "The same one that inspired a drive all this way in the first place," she thinks. She presses forward to her favorite song and sings along with the Yardbirds. "... and I can't find my way home..." steering the Volkswagon van along to whereever she can 'stay' until she can see her boy again. Until she can convince him that a home waits for the both of them.
"Not far off," she thinks. She is sure of it.
1972 Gangtok.
The Lama leaves the monastery where his holiness has just bestowed upon him a notable honor of grave importance. The Dalai Lama has taped a message, a message to the fighters of the Resistance. His holiness has given this taped message to the Lama who now carries it to pass along so that the Resistance fighters can hear it; one by one, faction by faction, until all the Khampas of the Tibetan Resistance have heard the taped message of His Holiness. It is this veneration that the Lama is given and goes down of the steps of the monastery to the center for Tibetan refugees.
Lhosta is one of the first to hear the taped message. He listens, at the center, along with other fighters who have left Tibet in exile, or arrived at the center, wounded, in need of an impartial/non-hostile hospital bed.
Danthra hears that the taped message is coming, before it arrives. Danthra has a scout out who've has it already. The message, to be heard by his group, is arriving at his camp today. Danthra thinks he knows what it is going to be about. He spends the morning polishing and etching something into the blade of his sword. He goes about his afternoon, often in prayer, believing that the goodness of the message of the Dalai Lama, about to be bestowed upon his humble camp, is the highest virtue he has known, yet, in his life as a Khampa, a fighter in the Resistance.
When Danthra hears it, he is not disappointed. The voice and words of His Holiness touch him, in his soul and in his mind, the way he knew they would; nevertheless, Danthra is determined not to comply. The taped message tells all his Khampas, circled around the machine which feeds the brownish film from reel to reel, to stop the fighting - desist from the Resistance - and go home wherever that may be, wherever they can go.
The tape reel runs out. The tail of brownish film, all on one reel now, flaps rapidly against the tape machine's feed mechanism making an annoying sound that, if not quite so stunned by the words of the message, any of the men would have rushed to switch off. Most of them stare at the machine. Danthra slowly reaches for the off switch, and the scout who promises to return the machine to the Lama he had taken it from, unplugs the cord and wraps it round two pegs at the base of the machine.
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama has spoken, the only words Danthra has heard in the actual voice of His Holiness - his holiness' own words - since the exile from Lhasa; and, even today, Danthra feels blessed to have heard these words. But, Danthra does not choose to obey them. He will not do what the His Holiness has asked him to do, surprisingly; although he loves and worships him. Danthra is not the only one to defy him. There are other Khampas who have agreed with Danthra to remain Resistance fighters 'til the end. This faction, headed by a Saipan-trained radio operator and a Camp Hale, ST Circus, CIA- trained Khampa has been very particular about the words 'until the end', ever since the faction banded together in the hills of Mustang between Tibet and India, in the area known as Nepal. Standing near a lake of water, Danthra and several of his men decide that if they can not continue fighting for the Resistance they will take their own lives by their own swords. Danthra takes out the sword that he has worked on, polishing and inscribing, all morning. Danthra, who has been in prayer most of the day and has cried out in emotional pain often since the words of the Dalai Lama
were heard among his group of men, raises his sword. He looks toward the water.
He says words of praise, and Danthra says, "I'd rather die than have no where to live, after all I have done for you, America, after all I have spent these years fighting for Tibet, telling my Resistance fighters, "you can not give up until His Holiness can go back to his home.' I will not stop this fight, until the Dalai Lama and all of Tibet is free to go 'back home'."
Danthra swiftly and with force brings down his sword. He whacks himself clear through the middle with it. Blood running through his shirt. Danthra's sword falls to the ground. His body falls limp at the edge of the water. Some of the men shriek or cry out. Three others slash themselves, and down they go, also at the water's edge. Two men run off, shouting words and telling the story of what had just happened on the bank of the water.
The scout who had brought the taped message to Danthra and his group of fighters, picks up Danthra's bloody sword and wipes it clean with a cloth swished through the water. He takes the tape machine back to the Lama who had given it to him, the Lama in Darjeeling.
"Here," he says handing back the message he had seen be the cause to end a life, the life of a friend. "Danthra wanted me to tell you that he felt this message was a blessing, a blessing from His Holiness. He wanted me to tell you that he did not want to stop the fighting, though. He was fighting, he said, for the return of His Holiness to Tibet and for the order of Tibetans to know the freedom it had once known in its homeland." The scout holds out the sword.
"He killed himself at the edge of the water with this sword. He wanted His Holiness to know that he was glad to give his life for the fight of Tibet and Buddism."
"He will be greatly blessed," the Lama tells the scout. "May I have the sword to show His Holiness?" he asks, and the scout surrenders it - the sword's inscription stained, inside the etchings, red with Danthra's blood. The Lama bows his head as the scout bows to the Lama.
"He wanted His Holiness to know that he trained with the CIA, and that he has a brother, here, in Darjeeling, who also trained with him." "He will want to know this," says the Lama, "and in gratitude, I will tell him."
Outside of the monastery as the scout walks away, he has the urge to pray. He hears inside his head, or is it off in the distance, the many clicks of a spinning prayer wheel. He imagines the prayer wheel to the rhythm that he hears, round and round and round. The next one chimes in. It is a rhythm that does not know a single beat, but has, instead, a many layered sound - one upon the other, that rushes to 'catch up' with the one that went before it. The one that went before it slowing down. Over and over, clicking, clicking, speeding up and slowing down, round and around. The 'music' of the sound calms him as he thinks of Danthra's body red with blood. The rhythm reminds him, that the prayer will fill him, a lonely scout with no where to go. A scout of the Resistance who would be going back, now, into the hills of Mustang, probably to relay a message from here, now that he has transported the message sent from there; but, the sword and its red, blood-filled inscription is the last message of the Resistance this scout will ever send; and he, like the others, does not know how to
go 'back home' again.
1972 Peking • Bejing • Darjeeling • Gangtok • Leadville
Danthra and three other Resistance fighters huddle around the small radio transmitter in the back of the bar, listening through the static; one of the men constantly adjusting the signal. On the other side of the world, Stephanie drags a laundry basket to the couch and turns the television on, Channel Two. Out front of the Beijing Peking airport a neatly dressed news correspondant speaks into her microphone with the letters KFAQ and the number two resting on the plastic covering just above her hand.
“President Richard Nixon," she begins, "arriving today to the Beijing airport." She turns slightly, "You can see the Spirit of 76 arriving behind me." The winds catches just a bit of her hair and blows it out of place.
"President Nixon will be the first American president to visit The People's Republic of China for what promises to be an extraordinary week for the leaders of both countries. President Nixon will be meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, and visiting several Chinese monuments with his wife Mrs. Nixon. Oh, look!" she gets a little excited, nearly a tender smile comes across her face as she jumps just slightly watching the first lady exit the plane, "there is Mrs. Nixon. President Nixon taking her hand - there they go, off the plane."
The camera pans across the runway for close ups of the President, his wife, Secret Service men in black and several Chinese heads of state who greet the party. The correspondant, facing front and center, her composure obviously regained talks rapidly now in a bit lower of a voice about the weeks planned events and the momentous gathering taking place behind her.
"President Nixon," she tells the camera and billions of viewers at the same time, "is performing a vital part in history, today, facilitating the commencement of an open diplomatic alliance between the United States and the People's Republic of China, after years of dissension and separation between these two great nations."
Danthra scoffs and others near him grunt or groan out sounds of disapproval. Stephanie wonders about the correspondant's hair color, whether or not it might look good on her, and Mac - on the tarmac - steps out of the way of the camera man, who shuts the camera off, the red light disappearing as he asks the correspondant to run up to the group, asking for an interview.
"Sorry," Mac tells the two, daring journalists mid-stride, "this is as close as you can get." When the camera man begins to protest, Mac flashes a badge and signals one of ten, similarly dressed men who quickly arrives behind the pair.
"Secret Service," he tells the camera man. "Please stay behind the line."
"Uh - sorry. Sorry," the camera guy says and backs up before the second, slightly more intimidating guy can grab his camera. "I said okay!" he says and the two of them move back, inside the yellow painted lines. "You're robbing the American people of their right to know, you know," he criticizes as he cuts in front of the line of people he is pushed back behind.
"You had the best spot to stand in, too" Mac says.
"Aww," he man behind him jeers.
"You should learn when you've been given a good place," Mac advises.
"Go suck a rock!" the camera guy says.
"He didn't mean that!" the news correspondant speaks up, "He didn't."
Mac steps back over the line and falls in place with the other Secret Service personnel. He watches the President take hold of his wife's gloved hand and walk, both of them waving at the crowd of onlookers.
"Protocal," Mac usually thinks at these things, but this one's special. This one gives him goosebumps on his arms as he watches the first couple walk. The events of this week, he admits to himself, have particular meaning to Mac and the men of the 10th Mountain Division, the men who led ST Circus and the men who had seen the Dalai Lama to exile. Mac knows, after the losses suffered in Tibet, this attempt to 'talk it out' is the best choice to be made at this time.
"This 'meeting of the minds' that Kissinger had talked about on The Cronkite Show is just a load of crap," thinks Mac. "Now that he's here - now that he's made it inside, he's going to really tell him how it is."
"Now it begins," he tells the Secret Service worker beside him, "we're gonna be able to bring that Dalai Lama back home." The Secret Service guys glares at him.
"Watch it," he says. "You know you're not supposed to talk like that. Not here." Mac steps back to his 'spot'. He waves his hand through the air.
"Sorry. Didn't say anything. Nothing at all." Mac reminds himself, one last time, not to get emotional over a people he does not 'know'.
He reminds himself, "Cared too much, last time." He allows his mind to think the words, "let go." And Mac decides he'll 'watch' this momentus event without emotion, without regard to what he'd worked toward and walked away from, ten years ago, where the Rocky mountains simulated the Himalayas.
As Mac gets into a car, himself, with several others dressed in the same black suit he is wearing, dark glasses, same brand and color shoes, he thinks about John Dulles. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State at the Geneva Conference, 1954. John Foster Dulles refused to shake the hand of Chairman Mao's representative. That same representative is now the Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China; the very Prime Minister that President Nixon is scheduled to meet, in a series of talks, talks that span the entire week.
"The President 'may' or 'may not'," the group is just told over radioed communication, "be meeting with Mao Zedong, himself, this visit."
"Huh," is all Mac says out loud.
Mac knows what Antoine would have said, "Hooey!"
At this moment, looking out the car window onto the actual scenery of China, watching the Chinese landscape that he'd seen only in books, up until now, Mac wonders where in the world Antoine is today. He had stayed behind at Camp Hale until the very end. Until they closed its gates in '64.
"A ghost town for the last two years," he'd heard. But the resistance, Mac knows, continues on even today, on this day that Mac and his colleagues are chauffeured around Beijing, up in the hills and mountain passes of Mustang, along the Tibetan border with India, the Tibetan Khampas carry on the fight of the Resistance, resistance to the Chinese invasion of Tibet.
Leadville: 300 Days Away Page 17
