Bone Mountain is-3

by Eliot Pattison

  Shan could not hear the conversation, but from the man's excitement, from the way the party in blue shirts raised their hands, clapping in Jenkins's direction, he knew the soldiers had scored one last victory. An army truck sped past, and Shan saw the distant figures of a patrol jogging along the south end of the valley.

  "She's okay, Winslow," a deep voice suddenly announced. Jenkins was there, at the side of the dig, studying Winslow with an apologetic expression. "I thought you'd want to know. Larkin's up there, the soldiers say, hiding in the trees with a lot of Tibetans, digging for something. They're bringing her down." The American manager studied Winslow, then shook his head and sighed. "I'm sorry about that fax. If it helps I'll put in a word. You were trying to help, I know." Winslow did not acknowledge him, only stared toward the far end of the valley. Jenkins shrugged and stepped back toward the platform.

  A mocking voice called from a distant corner of Shan's mind. Thirteen months of freedom. Four years in the gulag, then thirteen months of freedom. It was the way many purbas lived, he knew, alternating long stretches of lao gai with short intense bursts of work on behalf of their cause.

  But there was another voice, equally distant at first, shouting at him down a long dark corridor in his mind. The deity rock. Even a small distraction might allow some of the Tibetans to escape, perhaps even taking Jokar with them. If only Tenzin and Jokar could flee, Shan could bear all the suffering to come. He inched toward the crew putting the final touches on the Serenity banner. Without consciously understanding what he was doing at first, he found himself by the stack of paint cans. He leaned and picked up a can of red paint. When he looked up Somo was there, only five feet away, staring forlornly at the line of prisoners coming down the valley through the ruins of the village. He stepped to her side and extended the can of paint. She accepted it with a confused look. They gazed at each other a moment, exchanging the kind of sad, proud gazes soldiers might trade as they were about to throw themselves against impossible odds.

  He opened his mouth with a small, sad smile. "Can you run?" he asked.

  An intense energy seemed to build in her eyes as Somo considered his question. Then she looked at the can of paint and smiled back. He spoke quietly to her, and an instant later she faded away through the crowd.

  As she did so the East is Red anthem exploded through the public address system again and scattered applause broke out as the dignitaries rose to formally welcome a final set of visitors marching from the camp toward the platform. Shan's throat tightened as he watched Khodrak, Padme, and Tuan escorted by a line of the white-shirted guards, each of them shaking hands with many of those in the crowd, acting like guests of honor. This was their day as much as Jenkins's. Khodrak moved slowly, ceremoniously carrying his mendicant's staff, Padme a step behind, carrying the black satchel Shan had seen in the conference room at Norbu.

  The professor wandered toward the delegation from Norbu. Shan watched as Ma politely shook hands and spoke, first with Padme, then with Khodrak, who seemed at ease with the elderly Han.

  Lhandro stirred from the paralysis that seemed to have gripped those at the dig. "It is dangerous for that professor," the rongpa headman said in a low voice to Shan. "He doesn't know what kind of monk that Khodrak is."

  "He senses something important here," a soft, worried voice said at Shan's shoulder. It was Ma's assistant, the young graduate student who had been finishing the report. In her hand was a large brown envelope. "He must go. I keep trying to take him home.

  "He was supposed to be the head of the entire university. He was so adored by his students that they would ask him to give extra classes, at night, unofficially." She spoke the words quickly, as if she had been storing them, anxious to tell Shan and his friends. "Five years ago he was ready to be installed as the chairman of the university, but someone from Beijing visited a class and discovered that he was not using the approved history text." She paused to watch a procession move out of the army encampment, a small knot of officers, with Lin at the center wearing a clean uniform. "The professor laughed and said that history was a rich tapestry and the party's history book made it seem like an old grey rag. His students laughed, too, and applauded. But the visitor didn't laugh. They made another professor head of the university, and took away Professor Ma's classes. He is only allowed to do research now."

  Shan studied the old Han, who seemed to have recognized something in Khodrak that bore closer inspection. What was the professor doing? Lepka had said he was a good man. In another lifetime he might have been a Chinese monk, trying in his own gentle way to bridge the gaps between peoples.

  Although out of earshot, Ma seemed to be speaking affably with the chairman of Norbu gompa. But his eyes roamed over Khodrak, studying his elegant robe, his finely worked leather sandals, the pearl rosary that hung from his belt. After a moment he gestured toward the mendicant's staff, and Khodrak hesitantly extended it toward him. The professor ran his fingers along the fine scrolling of the metal head then, strangely, the two men seemed to struggle for possession of the staff until Khodrak jerked it from Ma's grip and peevishly stepped away, the professor watching his back with an oddly disappointed expression. One of the howler guards rushed to Khodrak's side and leaned into his ear. The chairman looked toward the dig, and his eyes suddenly glowed. They had found Jokar.

  The music faded, and Jenkins appeared by the microphone on the platform as though to speak, but his eyes were on the odd drama unfolding by the dig. The crowd seemed to follow his gaze, and gradually grew silent.

  Suddenly Ma hurried past Khodrak and stepped in front of Jokar as though to defend him. Another figure materialized beside Ma. Lepka had joined him, as if Jokar, Ma, and he, the three oldest men present, suddenly felt an obligation to resist the chairman of Norbu. Khodrak frowned, then glanced pointedly at Colonel Lin, who stood twenty feet away, as though to will the officer to intervene. Lin reacted by taking a single step toward the professor, so Khodrak stood alone, facing the old men in momentary confusion. He seemed about to gesture toward his white-shirted troops when the professor swept his arm around the site of the dig.

  "Tibetans did a terrible thing here a hundred years ago," Ma said loudly.

  "Not Tibetans," Lin shot back irritably, and though he seemed about to say more, the words choked in his throat as a look of surprised disbelief crossed his face. He looked at Shan as though for help. Again Khodrak pressed forward. He seemed unable to contain his anger, and his greed, even in front of those who had come to fete him. Or perhaps not, Shan thought. Perhaps Khodrak had decided he had already been anointed by the government, that everything for him had become part of a performance for the dignitaries, a demonstration of new powers.

  "This old Tibetan is a criminal!" the chairman of Norbu gompa shouted to Lin, stabbing an accusing finger toward Jokar, then he repeated the words in the direction of the officials seated on the platform.

  Shan stepped in front of Jokar, beside Lepka and Ma. Khodrak answered the movement with a sneer. "A master criminal of the Dalai Cult," Khodrak continued in his loud, public-address voice as he pointed at Jokar, "surrounded by his criminal henchmen! Fomenting regression!" He shot an impatient glance at Lin and his troops, looked back at the officials, then straightened and smoothed his robe as he turned in the direction of the platform, his staff at his side.

  "Great things will be said about this day," he boomed, "about how the new China routed out the last of the bad elements in this region with the forces of economic development and prosperity!" The chairman of Norbu had apparently rehearsed a speech, and had decided now was the time to give it. He had not counted on Jokar wandering freely, and he had to be sure the world knew Jokar was his. For Khodrak had clearly decided that the day should not be about the oil well, but about his personal victories.

  "It is a day of reckoning for this valley, for this region, a day of history for the Bureau of Religious Affairs and Norbu." He pointed to the long single file of figures being escorted at gunpoint down the valley,
then to Jokar. "Today we wipe out the criminal elements who have kept this district in the feudal age. Today we start a new life! A new age! They will hear about this in Beijing!" He cast a yearning eye toward the microphone that had been installed on the platform, and one of the white-shirted men leapt to the platform, pulling the microphone from its stand and handing it down to Khodrak, who pointed at the medicine lama again.

  Jokar seemed not to notice. He was staring at the top of Yapchi Mountain now, as if he saw something there not visible to anyone else, staring toward the snowcapped peaks with a weary, serene smile.

  "A leader of one of the most feudalistic institutions in all of Tibet, one of the most dangerous instruments of repression!" Khodrak's voice boomed across the valley now, and the chairman raised his ever-present mendicant staff in the air as though to punctuate his point. "A conspirator with the Dalai criminal himself! An agent sent from India to subvert the new order!"

  A figure swept by Shan in a blur, rushing toward Khodrak. It was Dzopa, his own staff raised in the air now. Khodrak's lips curled and he lowered his mendicant staff, holding it with both hands, its metal head aimed at the dobdob like a spear.

  The metallic crack of a gun split the air.

  Dzopa spun about, groaned, and crumpled to the ground. The soldiers behind Lin spun about, weapons raised. In the same instant Padme darted to Khodrak's side, and Winslow ran into the crowd of Tibetans. One of the howler guardians held a pistol, still extended, its barrel smoking. Lin furiously pointed at the man, and the nearest soldier lunged and slammed his rifle butt against the pistol, knocking it to the ground, then rested his boot on the weapon.

  Dzopa twisted, holding his left calf, which was bleeding profusely. Lhandro darted to the man's side and pressed a scarf against the wound. Jokar took two steps toward the dobdob then was restrained by Lepka, whose hand appeared on the ancient lama's shoulder. Tenzin stepped forward and knelt by Lhandro and the dobdob, Khodrak watching Tenzin with a victorious smile.

  Shan's eyes shot back and forth from Lin to Dzopa. Then his gaze locked on the mendicant staff in Khodrak's hands.

  "Arrest them!" Khodrak shouted at the guards. "You saw what that man with the staff did. Now his companion reveals himself, that one with the chig! And that Han who conspires with them!" he shouted in a victorious tone, pointing at Shan. "Arrest them all! Traitors! Murderers!"

  Chig. Shan looked about in confusion. It meant the number one. He looked back at Lhandro, still on the ground beside Tenzin. The simplest, oldest form of representing the number one in Tibetan writing was an inverted U, slanted slightly to the right. Like the birthmark on Lhandro's neck. His eyes moved from Khodrak to Lhandro. The one with the chig.

  Shan became aware of Tenzin moving his arm, drawing something in the earth with his finger, then looking at Shan. A shape of curves. It looked like the Arabic number three, slanted to the left, its bottom extended like a tail. It was a shape Shan knew well, the shape of the curved scar on Drakte's forehead. In Tibetan the symbol meant nyasha. Fish. Once the chairman had been looking for a man with a fish.

  Khodrak's smile faded as he saw the figure in the dirt, and he turned his back on Tenzin and the dobdob. "Murderers!" he called out again. "Seize them!"

  "Murderers?" A voice called out from behind Khodrak. Several of the officials were standing at the edge of the platform now. One of them, a lean older man wearing a grey uniform, examined the chairman of Norbu gompa with a puzzled expression. "You order an arrest?"

  "The Religious Affairs officer in Amdo town." The announcement left Khodrak's lips slowly. "It will be written that he was a hero who died for our true cause, who died for the Serenity campaign, who died as an example of how Norbu leads the new order."

  It will be written. Khodrak had written lies to win his newfound power. Drakte had written the truth to stop him, and died for it. Shan sensed his legs move and suddenly he was in front of Khodrak, blocking his path to the platform. Khodrak glared and made a shoving motion with his staff. Shan stared at the staff, his gaze fixed now on its head.

  "I know the hero who died for the truth," Shan declared.

  Suddenly the truck escorting Larkin and the Tibetans began honking its horn as if in celebration, and those on the platform looked away, toward the line of prisoners. But Khodrak and Shan kept their eyes locked together, until abruptly Khodrak lowered the staff, its head leveled at Shan's abdomen, and lurched forward with it. A hand shot out as Shan felt the cold steel touch his stomach. Ma was at his side, hand on the metal shaft head, pushing it back. The horn stopped, and Khodrak withdrew the staff with a satisfied air and stepped around them.

  A strange stillness fell over Shan and the professor as they watched Khodrak, then slowly Shan turned to see Ma standing looking into the palm with which he had seized the staff. The professor's palm was sliced open. Blood dripped down his fingertips onto the soil.

  It was said by the old Tibetans that sounds accompanied enlightenment, not human words but sounds the spirit somehow knew to use when it was in contact with deities. Perhaps the sound that escaped Shan's lips now was such a reaching out, a strange part-groan, part-exclamation of discovery, part cry of pain.

  The professor, who seemed oblivious to his wound, looked at him with sudden worry. "Are you ill?" Ma asked.

  Yes, Shan wanted to reply. Ill with the truth. Ill with the heavy knowledge of what Beijing's years of occupation had done to all of them.

  But instead someone shouted out in a loud, steady voice. "One yak," the voice said sternly. "Only one yak. Lamtso Gar has one yak." Shan almost began looking around before he realized it was his own voice. "Eighteen sheep. Five goats," he said, remembering the way the woman at the lake had proudly pointed out her entry in Drakte's ledger. "And two dogs."

  Khodrak halted. The color of his face shifted, pale at first, then flush with anger. The chairman of Norbu was suddenly in front of him again, raising his staff, now slamming the butt end of it into Shan's belly. Shan collapsed onto his knees, holding his belly, fighting for breath. But not taking his eyes off those on the platform, turning as though trying to address the dignitaries, the Tibetans, and the soldiers all at once.

  "Last year," Shan shouted, gasping, looking at the platform, "a child died of starvation there."

  "Coward!" Khodrak snarled. "We are the examples of the new way. We came to be celebrated." He turned. "Tuan!" he snapped, and the Director appeared, followed by four white shirts who seemed eager to close on Shan. But then Shan pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, and unfolded it: the photograph of the cottage by the lake he had taken from Tuan's office. He extended it like a weapon. Tuan, only ten feet away now, halted, the color draining from his face.

  Lin uttered a sharp syllable and soldiers flanked the white shirts, making it clear they should go no further. It was a little thing, Shan thought, of minor consequence to Lin. He was just allowing Shan to hang himself in front of the dignitaries.

  If Khodrak was not certain whom his audience should be, Shan at least knew who his was. He struggled to his feet and stepped closer to the platform as Khodrak glared, first at Shan, then at Lin. "The people of the district compiled their own report of economic activity. A report based on the truth. The people must have a voice, too. When they sought to present it to Deputy Director Chao in Amdo town, Khodrak killed Chao, then killed the Tibetan who brought it."

  Incredible as it seemed, Shan realized the only audience that would listen to him was the one before him now, an audience of soldiers who distrusted knobs, and howlers who distrusted knobs, and knobs who distrusted both; an audience in which those not form Lhasa and the Ministry feared those who were, who would tolerate his accusations because they were all seasoned in the language of accusation, and had been taught that suspicion and fear and blame were the foundations of power. Most no doubt assumed Shan would be in manacles after his speech, but just as certainly everyone was wondering whether they might hear something that might enhance their own power.

  "Killed them wi
th the very staff he carries. Measure it and you'll see it matches the wound that killed Deputy Director Chao." Shan had no doubt now that it matched another wound, one he had seen, the terrible gash in Drakte's abdomen that the purba had tried to mend with coarse thread and a tent needle. Drakte had fled Khodrak, had fled from Amdo town, but the blow Khodrak had inflicted had finally killed him at the hermitage. And killed their sacred mandala.

  The line of detainees from the end of the valley was closing, and would be at the camp in five minutes. Melissa Larkin would be there, face to face with Zhu.

  There was movement behind Shan. Professor Ma was there again, with Shan; two Chinese against the Tibetan chairman of Norbu gompa. The professor said nothing, but turned his hand outward, where the officials form Lhasa, in the front row, could plainly see the blood dripping from his hand. One of them, the stern woman in the grey dress gasped and spoke into the ear of a man beside her.

  "Lies!" Khodrak shouted. "You have no proof!" He looked back uncertainly at his guards, penned in by the soldiers, and then at Tuan, who still stood as if paralyzed. It seemed as though Director Tuan had suddenly given up. But Shan knew he had given up long ago. Tuan had never shared Khodrak's energy, or goals. Shan's visit to Tuan's office had cracked open a door in Shan's memory, down the dark, distant corridor that represented his Beijing incarnation. For Inspector Shan, who had specialized in corruption investigations, the evidence had been obvious. Tuan's ambitions had been more modest than Khodrak's. He had only wanted to retire before he died of his disease, to go to his modest cottage, financed by the phantom soldiers he had put on his payroll.