Bone Mountain is-3

by Eliot Pattison

  The pilot's hand drifted away from the door, and he accepted the passport for closer inspection. "Seven years left on mine," Winslow said. "I just go back to the office, say it was stolen, and they give me a new one."

  "Then they invalidate this one," the pilot rejoined.

  "Doesn't affect the value. Black market buyers know they can still use it anywhere that doesn't have automated clearance systems, any border station without a computer uplink to the centralized files. Meaning eighty percent of the world."

  The pilot stared at each of them a moment, then grinned, put the passport in his pocket, and engaged the rotors.

  You will sense a great rushing like a strong wind when you die, with a floating sensation, and the world will soar around you. The words of the death rite echoed in Shan's mind as they shot over the rough, dry landscape. Wearing the earphones that hung on the back of the seat in front of him, leaning on the small window, Shan found a distant place within and simply experienced the rushing of the land beneath. Riding in a helicopter could be a meditation exercise, he mused, to understand how vast, and transitory, the world was.

  The pilot did not argue when Winslow asked him to bypass Yapchi's main camp, coming in low from the west so as not to be seen. He would not, Shan realized, want anyone to know he had departed from his assigned route, which would have been west of Yapchi in any event. As they approached the site Winslow had marked on the map the pilot guided the helicopter low over the mountains, hugging the contours of the ridge, until suddenly Shan realized they were hovering. Winslow and the pilot were pointing to a clearing near the top of the ridge and glancing at the map. Then abruptly, the machine tilted forward a hundred yards, straightened and sank. They touched down hard, Winslow flung open the door and they leapt out. The pilot offered a mock salute, hesitated, looking around the bleak terrain, then examined the three figures beside his machine. He unbuckled his harness and rummaged around the cargo compartment. Moments later he began tossing things out of the open door. Two blankets. A first aid kit. A down vest and, finally, a bag of American potato chips.

  Seconds later the machine was gone and they stood alone in the wind on the high ridgetop clearing. Winslow handed the vest to Somo, as Shan gathered up the other items in one of the blankets and slung it over his shoulder, then trotted to the nearest outcropping. He felt strangely uneasy being in the clearing.

  "You want to find Miss Larkin," Shan said to the American when Winslow had caught up with him. Somo and I want to find the purbas. I think they may be at the same spot."

  "You don't know that," the American asserted. "Christ, everything is a conspiracy with you."

  Shan sighed. "In the helicopter I realized something. When Somo told me what Larkin had done with the computer I asked why would anyone speak with Somo about what Larkin did. That was the wrong question. I should have asked why would Somo's contact know what Larkin did, if she had gone so far to preserve her secrecy. There can be only one answer. Because she was with purbas, because purbas are working with her for some reason. That explains why Zhu is so interested in her. A foreigner helping the resistance, the government would-" Shan stopped in mid-sentence. Winslow grinned back at him.

  Somo gave a reluctant shrug, but nodded slowly as the two men studied her. "I don't know any details. It's a different project, a different team. Bad security, for everyone to know what the others are doing."

  Shan nodded agreement. "Rivers," he said. "We know she is marking rivers. We know Tibetans are collecting water from rivers." He asked Winslow for the map, and traced with his finger each of the blue lines that radiated out of the mountains. He climbed to the top of the outcropping. They could see two of the small rivers, emerging from narrow canyons to flow to the west and south.

  "She's expected to be here tomorrow," Winslow said. "She's not here now. And she wouldn't be likely to travel all night in the mountains. So say she's no more than half a day's walk from here." He made a wide circle with his finger on the map. "But to the west she would be out of the Yapchi oil concession," he added.

  "Sky birthing," Winslow said. "That man taking the bottle to the Green Tara, he said something about going to the sky birthing." He frowned and searched the horizon.

  Suddenly Shan looked up and pointed to the main peak of Yapchi Mountain. "We know where the sky is born," he declared with a grin.

  They had been walking for three hours, feeling increasingly uncertain that they could find the place they sought, when suddenly a Tibetan youth appeared, jogging along a trail that ran laterally below them on the slope they were descending. He had no pack, not even a heavy coat, but he clutched something in his hands. Shan looked at Winslow, who was rubbing his temples with a grimace, then at Somo. She grinned, tightened the laces of her shoes, grabbed the bag of potato chips and leapt down the slope.

  They watched, Winslow taking two more of his pills, as the purba runner advanced on the youth, but when Somo was still two hundred yards from him, the boy dropped out of sight below a ridge. When Shan and Winslow crested the ridge the American gave a shout of glee, one of his strange cowboy hoots. Somo was sitting with the boy three hundred yards away. As they approached they could see the boy was stuffing the chips into his mouth, speaking in a relaxed fashion with Somo. But before they were within earshot the youth stood, waved at the two men good-naturedly, and began running again.

  "He had a bottle of water," Somo said in a meaningful tone. "Only a small bottle of water, for the Green Tara."

  They followed the path the boy had taken until, with an hour of light left, Somo raised her hand in alarm. A noise like thunder was echoing off the mountain in front of them. Shan gestured her forward, and five minutes later they stepped onto an open ledge that revealed the source of the thunder far below. Shan pointed toward a tiny line of shadow on the towering rock monolith above them.

  "That damned goat trail," Winslow said. "The one Chemi led us on into Yapchi." They stood at the edge of a broad U-shaped chasm filled with mist, the place Chemi had shown them the week before from far above, the place where clouds were born.

  Somo pointed downward. On the other side of the gorge, far below, they could see the boy again, following a trail that spiraled down into the mist. Half an hour later, daylight almost gone, they were on the trail, at the edge of the mist, descending toward the thunder sound, warily hugging the wall as they sought footing on the slippery path. What had Chemi said of the place? Some people believed a demon lived there.

  "We can't climb back up in the dark," Winslow warned, rubbing his temple again.

  Shan eyed the treacherous path uncertainly. "The boy didn't come back," he said, and stepped forward into the mist.

  In another few minutes the mist began to clear, and they looked out over a roiling mass of water, a narrow, powerful river that tumbled into the chasm and then, in a violent maelstrom, seemed to boil itself away. There was no outlet. Water was not leaving the gorge, except in the small clouds they had seen drifting skywards.

  Somo stared at the strange sight with wide, frightened eyes. "It could be what they said," she offered in a near whisper, meaning, Shan knew, that the strange, powerful place could indeed be home to a demon. He fought a temptation to step back into the mist, to hide in the clouds.

  Suddenly a sharp cracking sound joined the thunder, and a piece of the rock wall beside him burst into fragments. An instant later a patch of wall on the other side, by Winslow, split open followed by the sharp whine of a ricochet. Someone was shooting at them.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Winslow dropped to his knees, pointing toward a hole in the side of the gorge below them, where the barrel of a rifle protruded from the shadow. He began fumbling with his pack, cursing under his breath. Shan, suddenly remembering that the American carried Lin's pistol, pushed Winslow's arm down.

  Somo removed her green jacket and called out. "Lha gyal lo!" she cried, one hand in the air, the other conspicuously grabbing the gau around her neck.

  A Tibetan man burst out of
the shadows, brandishing a long rifle. He stared at them, acknowledging Somo with an angry frown, then motioned them forward with the tip of his weapon. As he stepped down the sloping trail Shan saw that the hole in the rock was actually a wide undercut, ten feet high and thirty long, where the river must have once eroded part of the wall. The man waited for them, exchanged a few whispered words with Somo, and led them toward a deeper patch of shadow which proved to be a heavy blanket hung from a timber wedged in the rock.

  They followed a short tunnel, through another hanging blanket, and stepped into a cavern with a high vaulted ceiling, perhaps forty feet wide, lit by several bright gas lanterns.

  The boy they had seen above sat near the entrance watching, round-eyed, the activity in the chamber. Two young men, one of them a purba Shan had seen with Tenzin, huddled over a map spread across a flat rock. On a table made of long planks laid across two stacks of flat stones a portable computer sat open, its screen displaying what seemed to be a three dimensional cross-section of a mountain, in many colored layers. Several rifles leaned against the back wall. Beyond the computer, he saw two middle-aged Tibetans bent over two microscopes. A third figure, in a green jacket, leaned over a rack of test tubes, scribbling in a spiral notepad.

  Winslow froze and made a small choking sound. The figure in green straightened and turned slowly. It was a woman with unkempt, curly reddish blond hair gathered in a short braid at the back. She opened her mouth as though to speak, but only stared at Winslow, her green eyes puzzled.

  "Dr. Larkin, I presume," Winslow said softly in English. For the first time since Shan had known him the American seemed at a loss for words. He just stared at the woman with a small, self-conscious grin. She was shorter than Winslow, though not by much, and perhaps ten years younger. Her high cheekbones would have given her an elegant appearance, but for a sprinkling of freckles on each.

  The woman glanced peevishly at the two Tibetans at the map, then at the sentry standing at the entrance. "You're the one from the embassy," she said in English. She stared at Winslow strangely. Not in anger, or frustration, but as if there was something about Winslow that perplexed her. "The one the Tibetans call the cowboy. They said you were gone."

  "I was," Winslow said, still grinning. "I came back. To warn you," he added after a moment.

  Melissa Larkin frowned, and glanced at the men with the map again. "We are in no danger," she said. "Comrade Zhu did me the favor of already reporting me dead," she added.

  "Only to clear the field," Winslow declared. "Comrade Zhu wants you dead again," and then, switching to Tibetan, he began explaining what they had learned in Golmud. The American geologist remained silent as Winslow spoke- pouring three mugs of black tea, but keeping her eyes on Winslow the whole time. One of the men at the map darted to the back wall, returned with an automatic rifle, an army weapon, and disappeared behind the blanket at the entrance.

  "A trap?" Larkin asked. "Sounds a bit melodramatic."

  "I've worked in China for over five years," Winslow said. "And you have been in China and Tibet almost as long. What part don't you believe? That the venture's given up on you? That the Chinese would want to stop you from working with certain Tibetans? That Comrade Zhu would go to the trouble of coming back into the mountains and not just send the army in? All the others might think you're dead. Zhu knows better, because he planned it, because he lied to me, lied to Jenkins, lied to everyone to make us think that."

  Larkin smiled as if amused by Winslow's words. The expression made little indentations on either side of her mouth. Shan searched for the word in English. Dimples. She gestured Somo toward the man who remained at the map, and stepped away to join the purbas in hushed, urgent dialogue.

  Shan stared at the computer and racks of test tubes. On the table was another map of the region, with thick lines drawn in several bold colors. He inched closer and studied it. Each line had a number inscribed at its end. One, two, three, through six. He looked up and found the woman in the green jacket, with the green eyes, standing three feet away, staring at him.

  "You're the Green Tara," Shan ventured, "the one they bring water to."

  "Not my idea, that name. It's embarrassing," Larkin said.

  "A protector deity," Winslow said with another grin. He seemed unable to stop smiling. He had come to Tibet for a body and discovered a living woman.

  Shan saw that one short line on the map, labeled seven, ran only for an inch on the paper, on the mountain above them, then continued for two inches in red dashes. "You plot river courses," he said in confusion. He spotted several long plastic tubes of colored powder leaning against the back wall. "You drop markers in rivers. But the rivers are already mapped. Why?"

  "Not all are mapped," the American woman said. "Not this one. Not the Yapchi River."

  "The Yapchi?"

  "That's what we call it."

  "What's a river in the mountains have to do with oil?"

  Larkin sighed. "Do you know how many geologic mysteries remain on the planet? I mean major unknowns. A hundred and fifty years ago the sources of many major rivers had yet to be found. The tectonic plates had not been defined, or even theorized. Many of the world's greatest peaks had yet to be discovered. Vast regions had yet to be mapped. Today, outside the bottom of the oceans, what's left? In all my career I had never hoped to have a taste of such excitement. But then I came to Yapchi camp." Her gaze drifted toward Somo and the other purbas, still speaking in quiet tones. "After four days on this mountain I knew something was wrong. The water coming off the mountain wasn't nearly enough, given the size of the snowpack and dimensions of the watershed."

  "You mean you discovered this river? But it's not a river. I mean-"

  "It is and it isn't. It's a hidden river. A buried river. The river tumbles down the mountain for three miles and slams into this gorge. It's the wrong place, I thought at first. A fluke of the terrain, maybe just a temporary feature that happened this year because of a rockslide somewhere above that blocked the normal watercourse. Nature doesn't send rivers into deadend canyons."

  "You mean it goes inside, underground from here," Shan said. "A new feature for maps of the region."

  "Like the Upper Tsangpo." Winslow gave a low whistle. "You'll be famous," he said with a new tone of respect.

  Larkin acknowledged Winslow's words with a surprised expression, a nod of respect. A few years earlier a team of American explorers had gained international notoriety by scaling a treacherous, uncharted gorge in Tibet to confirm the existence of a beautiful waterfall that had been spoken of in Tibetan myth.

  "But why would Zhu hate you for that."

  Larkin looked at the man with Somo then at the two older men at the table, who continued to work at the microscopes, pausing sometimes to lift water from the test tubes with small droppers. "He doesn't like my helpers."

  Shan stared at the two Tibetans. They were not purbas, or at least not like any he had known. They looked like professors. Somo appeared at his side. "They are friends," she said pointedly, meaning that no one would offer their names. "Beijing will be furious," Larkin said, her eyes suddenly flush with excitement. "The discovery will be announced overseas, and credited to Tibetans. And if we discovered that it emerged north of the mountains it would be the new headwaters."

  The Tibetans all grinned at Shan. Larkin meant that the little river they had discovered would be the new source of the Yangtze, China's greatest river, announced and proven by Tibetans. Beijing would indeed be furious. Beijing would be apoplectic. It was Shan's turn to grin.

  An hour after dawn the next day they arrived at the high, remote clearing where Shan, Winslow, and Somo had been dropped by the helicopter the day before. Long rays of sunlight cut horizontally across the windblown ridge. The supplies had not arrived. The two purbas who had been with the map the day before stole away in opposite directions to circle the landing zone. Larkin had not accepted that Zhu wanted to do her harm, but she had agreed to leave early for the supply drop, and had listened
with an amused expression to Winslow's suggestion that they might want to test Zhu with a trick. If Zhu were indeed intending to harm Larkin, he would not come in the helicopter with the supplies for fear of frightening her away, and because the pilot might become a witness. He would have himself dropped perhaps a mile away and wait until the helicopter completed the supply drop. The purbas would watch the trail that led to the nearest clearing, the likely dropoff point, while Winslow rigged a decoy. "Be careful. Watch everywhere," Somo warned the two sentries as they began to jog to their post. "We don't know where that hidden patrol is." Hidden patrol. The words caused Shan to survey the rugged landscape again. She meant Tuan's hidden squad of knobs.

  Larkin still gazed with amusement as they watched from the rocks. She had seemed touched that Winslow had gone to such lengths to locate her, but although she did not give voice to the point, it seemed apparent she thought she needed no one's help. Yet the two Americans had warmed to each other, preparing the evening meal together the night before, and walking side by side on the trail that morning, sharing stories of home and mindless bureaucrats and experiences in Tibet, laughing softly together sometimes, even pausing to watch a hawk floating in the mountain updrafts.

  After an hour of watching from the rocks Larkin gave a conspicuous yawn, casting an impatient glance at Winslow, then produced her spiral pad and began studying her notes.

  Somo seemed troubled somehow. Finally she cast an anxious look toward the rocks on the opposite side where the two purbas kept watch, then turned to Shan. "They didn't want me to tell. They don't know you, said you and I were not part of this project. But you have to know. It's just that those bottles of water that go to the Green Tara. Sometimes they come with messages."

  "Secrets," Larkin interjected, with a tone of warning.

  "Sometimes about movements of knobs and soldiers, and Religious Affairs. Lokesh and Tenzin are not at Yapchi. But for the past two days none of them have moved south into Amdo town or north into Wenquan," Somo reported. "And no helicopters are known to have landed at Yapchi or anywhere else within twenty miles."