Bone Mountain is-3

by Eliot Pattison

  In order to weaken it,

  It must be thoroughly strengthened,

  In order to reject it,

  It must be thoroughly promoted,

  In order to take away from it,

  It must be thoroughly endowed.

  This is named subtle wisdom,

  This is how the weak triumphs over the strong.

  "A man like Tuan," Shan said with a nod to Lepka, "must be empowered to be destroyed."

  Winslow looked up with a devious glint. "Beware of Greeks," he said, "beware of Greeks bearing gifts."

  Larkin shared his conspiratorial grin. "A Trojan horse," she said, then turned to the others in the small circle. "It's a legend," she said, and explained.

  They sat in silence, letting the words of the Tao te Ching and the Greek legend sink in.

  "Perhaps," Shan ventured, "those who run Norbu must be careful what they ask for."

  "And what the rongpa and dropka in the surrounding valleys want most of all," Lhandro suggested, "is a spring festival as in the old days."

  They spoke for nearly an hour as the kettle boiled and Nyma churned tea. Somo brought out the other purbas, who listened and nodded excitedly. Somo disappeared through the door, emerging a moment later, strapping on her belt pack. She began running up the trail that led back up the mountain.

  "Second House had a beautiful gonkang," a wisp of a voice said from behind them as Somo disappeared.

  Nyma gasped. Jokar had materialized among the rocks ten feet away. "And the stable. We used to store herbs in that old stable."

  Lhandro and his parents stepped out of the door, followed by all the other Tibetans, who sat near Jokar and listened as the lama spoke of life at Norbu gompa sixty years before. It seemed somehow a perfect ending to their planning, like a benediction. Everyone thought the lama had finished when his eyes drifted out over the plateau and the clouds beyond. He leaned forward, as if studying something, as if he saw old Norbu in the clouds. "There is a place," he said with a slow nod, as if he were walking through the rooms in his mind, "in the cells by the stable, at the rear. A secret place, from when they came for the Sixth." The old lama seemed to have lost touch with reality again.

  But Shan watched the clouds, too, as the others stood and gathered around the tea churn once more. If Jokar could see the gompa in the clouds, perhaps he could see Lokesh. He watched so intensely he was unaware of anyone approaching until a paper, folded tightly into quarters, dropped against Shan's boot. He blinked and saw Lin, studying the Tibetans with suspicion in his eyes.

  "You can't touch those prisoners," he growled, rubbing his temple as he spoke. "If you touch them, if you try to take them, Public Security will shoot you." Lin's voice was still weak but his tone was vengeful. He raised his hand and looked as if he were going to make a fist out of it, but after a moment dropped it to his side and seemed to stagger, as if dizzy. "And if the damned knobs don't, I will," he rasped. "I will arrest everyone here. Arrest you and execute you!"

  Part Four

  Bone

  Chapter Sixteen

  When he scoured his mind of fear and laid back with his eyes closed, Shan felt small ripples of contentment coursing around him. Not his own contentment, for he had yet to find and free Lokesh and Tenzin, but that of the Tibetans who had gathered on the flat plain outside Norbu. Children were laughing, horses neighing, men were calling in expressions of wonder, and throughout all was woven the throaty rumblings of yaks. Occasionally, like the seasoning in some exotic dish, he heard the singing rush of arrows.

  He had spent an hour that morning sitting near the makeshift archery range a band of dropka had built beyond the tents, sitting on the spring grass, sharpening his awareness on the arrowpoints. The Tibetans had long ago taught him meditation exercises utilizing arrows and bows, sometimes real, sometimes imaginary, and he had discovered what Gendun meant when he had told Shan that archery was not a sport but a teaching. It was a perfect vehicle for achieving focus, and when he emptied his mind sufficiently he could hear, as Gendun had taught him, not just the drawing of the string, the release of the string, the flight of the arrow and its impact, but also the perfect instant of quiet just before the string was released, when the archer and his implements become one. Nothing in his own life was ever so straight, or true, or quick.

  The inhabitants of the neighboring lands had brought Khodrak and Padme their May Day festival. It had taken three days, with messengers running back and forth among the surrounding villages and dropka camps, but now a small town of tents had arisen on the plain adjacent to Norbu. Some rongpa came in old trucks, against which they tied canvas flies to sleep under. Dropka families erected tents of heavy felt. A few rongpa had settled into their traveling tents, white-fringed with blue patterns. Once, Lhandro explained, Tibetan townspeople had routinely taken their families to the countryside with such small tents, to celebrate religious holidays by reconnecting with the land, or to complete a kora of a gompa or holy mountain. Many of the Tibetans had not seen each other for years, and the air was filled with exclamations of greeting. Away from the gompa, away from the solitary white-shirted guard at its gate, Tibetans threw barley flour in the air, a traditional form of rejoicing. So traditional, Shan knew, the howlers would try to stop them if they saw it.

  In the truck they had met in the mountains, Shan had listened to a strange debate among Lhandro and the purbas. What did they need most of all to bring the local people to the festival, Somo had asked the rongpa. Yaks, the Yapchi headman had said, and archery. There could be no festival without yaks and arrows. To his surprise, the yaks had been easier to assemble than the archers, for archery had been another of the traditions suppressed by the government. As Shan had watched on the second day from the hidden post the purbas had established on the ridge above Norbu, a small herd of yaks had arrived, some already festooned with colorful ribbons and strands of yarn. The archery range, outlined with rocks aligned toward a series of hardened mud targets, had waited until dropka from the deepest part of the ranges had arrived, the dropka who lived farther from the reach of the government.

  He started from his dreamlike state as someone touched his arm, and opened his eyes into Anya's smiling face. She had clasped her hand around his own, and he silently let her pull him to his feet, then toward the makeshift pasture.

  "Nearly a hundred!" she said excitedly.

  Yaks. She meant nearly a hundred yaks, Shan saw as they stepped among the creatures. As he studied the joyful faces of the other Tibetans who gazed upon the animals, he realized that in the impoverished district such an accumulation was rare, representing a significant portion of the inhabitants' collective wealth.

  Anya led him into the center of the herd, patting nearly every animal they passed. Sharing a handful of dried cheese with him, she carefully explained the traditional names for the many color patterns. She pointed to a black creature with white spots. "Yak thabo," Anya explained with a dreamy expression, pausing to rub the yak's ears. "Yak dongba," she said, gesturing toward one with a white star on its forehead. A kawa had a white head, a tsen yak was golden, and one with asymetrical horns was called ralden. Anya finally reached a large, purely black animal which greeted them with a low rumbling in its throat.

  "I saw Gyalo arrive last night," she whispered. "He put on herder's clothes." Anya began tying braids in Jampa's hair, showing Shan how to fold and twist the hair, as she explained that he was the rarest of all, a lha yak, a perfect yak in every sense, protected by the deities and never to be used to carry an impure burden.

  Suddenly he realized that Anya was staring past his shoulder with fear in her eyes. He turned to see that she watched the gate of the gompa, nearly two hundred yards away.

  "It's time," she announced, and falling silent once more they walked back to the purba's truck. As they reached the shadows at the vehicle's side Nyma appeared and nodded toward the ridge above the gompa. A figure was running at the crest of the ridge, wearing the green uniform of a soldier. Shan watched as
the figure ran halfway down the slope, then he climbed into the shadows of the covered cargo bay to sit beside Nyma, who picked up his battered pair of binoculars. The purbas had positioned the truck so the bay faced the front gate and looked into the compound beyond, toward the first of the two-story structures inside, the administrative offices where Shan and Nyma had encountered the Democratic Management Committee of the gompa.

  Nyma studied the compound then handed him the glasses. He could see the soldier's face plainly in the lenses as the figure approached the gate. The rongpa and dropka reflexively hurried away from the figure, as they always did from the People's Liberation Army. Only those in the purba truck knew it was not a soldier, but even with his binoculars he could not tell it was Somo. Her hair was tightly tucked under an oversized green wool cap, the kind used under helmets by the mountain troops. Her uniform was complete but soiled, her tunic slightly torn at one shoulder. A leather dispatch case dangled from her other shoulder. The image was of a seasoned soldier who had been campaigning in the high ranges.

  The stern white-shirted Han men who had patrolled the festival camp had done so with disinterested, almost careless expressions. The first day a junior official, not Tuan, had strutted among the Tibetans with a suspicious air, as if he were passing judgment on the assembly. When he had shouted orders for several of the dropka to open their gaus for him the dropka had hesitated. But then the purbas had begun playing East Is Red, one of Beijing's favorite anthems, on a portable tape machine and several children appeared waving minature flags of the People's Republic, supplied by the purbas themselves. The howler offered an icy smile of approval, then waved the dropka away before withdrawing with a smug expression. His casual air had worried Shan. Important prisoners should have made the guards more wary.

  But still, a single sentry in a white shirt had been posted at the gates at all times since Shan had begun watching from the rocks above two days before. He took encouragement from the presence of the guard, as he did from the news that the dining hall was closed, but still there was no proof that Lokesh and Tenzin were inside the gompa walls. Somo now ran to the nearest guard, spoke in a low tone as she handed him Lin's letter, then darted away as though there was a crisis in the mountains. Everything went as scripted. She would not linger, for fear of too many questions. She would speak in a low voice, in hope of being mistaken for a man, and she would not look at the guard's face, to make it less likely she could be identified later. The guard stared in confusion after the running soldier a moment, then ran inside the administration building with the letter. Shan leaned forward with his binoculars. No one immediately appeared at the door but there was a movement at the window of the second floor office Shan had seen on his first visit. Less than a minute later, with a flush of excitement he watched five figures emerge and stride hurriedly to the gate: Director Tuan and Chairman Khodrak with the original guard and two more of Tuan's soldiers. As they reached the gate the guard pointed at Somo's receding figure, now far up the ridge. If they followed, the purbas were ready. By the time the guards arrived at the top of the ridge they would see four figures in army tunics, prompted by hidden purbas with signal flags, moving over the crest of the next ridge, hopelessly out of reach.

  Tuan looked as though he was about to order some of his men after Somo, but he looked out over the Tibetan encampment and seemed to reconsider. Instead he spoke to one of the guards and the man shot away, toward the structure behind the administrative building.

  Nyma shot Shan a grin. "Lha gyal lo," she whispered. Perhaps it was as much evidence as they could hope for.

  Yet still the Tibetans in the encampment expressed reluctance to go inside the gompa. If they were to proceed with their plan they needed help from the rongpa and dropka, help in understanding who might be inside, help in avoiding too much of the howlers' scrutiny. But it was a place of monks, a sacred place, despite the Chinese flags that flew between the buildings, and Lhandro cast discouraging looks toward Shan as the leaders of the gathered clans met with the purbas.

  A new set of visitors began moving around the camp, two photographers with several monks, led by Padme, who pressed bits of hard candy into the hands of all the children. Shan followed at a distance, watching as the group paused repeatedly to take photographs: Monks with smiling children on their laps. Monks helping to decorate the yaks. Padme gave new nylon jackets to several adolescents and distributed bottles of orange drink, directing the photographers to shoot pictures of all the joyful faces against the brilliant blue sky, then again with the gompa in the background. Padme found tools and had the monks pose with hammers, pretending to repair the rundown buildings outside the gate.

  As Padme led his party back into the gompa grounds, Shan lingered in the shadows beside the purba truck, a new hat pulled low over his eyes. He became aware of an old man staring at the truck, a white-haired Tibetan with a leathery face that bore the scars and wrinkles of a long hard life. The man sat forty feet away, his back against a small mound of felt blankets left beside a dropka yurt. Shan realized that not only had the man been there for hours, he had seen him on another day, operating a sewing machine at the gompa gate the first time Shan had visited Norbu. He saw the man's fingers working, two fingers moving in and out by his knee. It could have been a nervous gesture. It could have been a request for someone to approach, by a man who did not know how otherwise to ask. Shan pulled his hat tight and with small, tentative steps ventured near the old man.

  The Tibetan nodded as Shan reached him, and Shan hesitantly sat beside him. There were spies everywhere, Somo had warned. Sometimes monks were found to be working for Public Security. Even older Tibetans were coerced into becoming informants by promises of leniency for loved ones in prison. "They say you came from a Chinese bayal to help us," the man said in a strong but hoarse voice.

  A Chinese hidden land. The man meant that people didn't come to help from the normal Chinese world. Perhaps it was true, Shan thought. A bayal known as the gulag. "I would like to find a way to help," Shan confirmed.

  The man looked about and produced a folded piece of paper from inside his dirt-encrusted chuba. "I used to work at First House," he announced with a proud smile that showed half his teeth to be missing. "Not a monk, but as a carpenter. Once there was beautiful wood growing on those slopes. Sometimes people still come and ask me to make things. Simple things. A table, a chair, a stool. But paper to draw patterns and designs on is always scarce. A man from the kitchens wanted an altar built for his mother, and asked me to draw it for him, so he could buy the wood. He brought this to draw on, when that Padme left it on a table one night."

  It was an oversized sheet, a map, Shan saw, a map drawn by an expert hand, or perhaps traced from a printed map. The old man extended a gnarled finger at several notations. "Second House," he explained, pointing to Norbu, at the bottom of the sheet. "First House and Metoktang," he said. He was indicating the Plain of Flowers and Rapjung. The place names were shown, only in Chinese.

  "I read and write Chinese," the man said. "Those men at the gompa like to laugh at me, and I just play along. Fools are always to be pitied. Even that man in the kitchens doesn't know I read Chinese. None of them know I studied at the gompa school, with teachers who said we must learn how to live with the Chinese." The man gave a wheezing laugh and gestured back at the map. "If you wish to understand Second House, this is all you need," he announced.

  Shan gazed at him uncertainly, then glanced at the newspaper shed, remembering the defiant words secretly written on the board, and went back to making sense of the other marks on the paper. There was a legend that said Sterilized, depicted with an X drawn inside a circle. There was such an X on the far northwest corner of the Plain of Flowers, marked with a date, ten days earlier. There were at least fifteen more such marks on the adjoining lands, with dates, all within the past two months. On Rapjung gompa itself there was such a mark, Sterilized, with a date nine days before. He recalled Larkin's report of a monk and a doctor in the mountains, carry
ing kerosene. Then suddenly he understood, and felt strangely weak.

  "May the gods be victorious," the old carpenter said softly as Shan rose to take the map to the meeting by the truck, where he quickly explained it to the purbas, farmers, and herders at the same time.

  "But there is nothing out there," a middle-aged dropka pointed out, confusion on his leathery face. "Nothing but wilderness. Nothing that could be used against us."

  "The howlers would call them olds," Shan said, and he saw several of the Tibetans cringe. "Old herbal beds once used by the lamas. Holy sites used by the lamas from Rapjung. That is what Padme is destroying. We took him to Rapjung and he destroyed the buildings there." He paused as Lhandro explained the terrible night at Rapjung when the reconstruction had been reduced to ashes. They had been wrong about the dobdob, Shan knew now. The dobdob must have stopped Padme, beaten him because he had found the monk trying to burn the herbs. He remembered Padme's reaction when he had seen the reconstructed shrines at the old gompa. He had read reports, Padme had said. He meant Public Security and howler reports. It meant the dobdob was trying to stop the howlers, trying to stop the destruction of the herbs. The dobdob, protector of the virtuous, must have been Jokar's companion, the one they had seen in the meadow with Jokar, the one who was now missing.

  Gyalo stepped forward to explain what he had seen inside Norbu. Finally Nyma stood up and quietly asked how many knew Drakte. Nearly every hand went up. By the time she had quietly finished explaining that Drakte had been killed trying to help, there were no more arguments from the farmers and herders. They rose with grim determination and broke into groups as the purbas began explaining their plan.