Bone Mountain is-3

by Eliot Pattison

  It was as if one of Lokesh's karma storms was roiling the valley, as if everything that could happen was happening, changing too fast to be understood, too sudden for the pain of it all to be fully sensed. He could not stop beating the drum. The drum was beating him.

  He lost track of time, but eventually became aware of Gang standing close to him, staring with his head cocked, his eyes not bitter or angry, only empty and pleading. Shan handed him the sticks and stepped back. An hour or more had gone by. The speaking platform below was empty, and the dignitaries were gathered at the tables, having their banquet as though unaware of the water that still flooded their derrick or, more likely, unconcerned, because they knew the water would soon recede and the derrick would resume drilling.

  The derrick itself was empty, and the muddy pond at its base was perhaps three hundred feet across. But the waters seemed to have stopped flowing. A new pond had appeared at the end of the valley, where Jenkins had built a rough levee by bulldozing the surface soil of the barley fields into a long, low bank.

  Shan studied Gang, who seemed to have drifted to the same place the drum had taken each of them before. His eyes lost their focus. His hands gripped the drumsticks despite his still-healing burns, gripped so tightly his knuckles were white, as if he wasn't holding sticks but a lifeline. The embittered Han had attacked Shan, he knew now, had attacked him and taken the eye.

  But why? Because he thought Shan had not earned the right to return the eye? Because he simply could not believe there could be another Han who was virtuous? More likely, because he had spent most of his life trying to redeem himself, to prove himself to the Tibetans, then seen the most visible proof, his reconstructed shrines, go up in flames.

  Shan wandered to the valley floor, mingled with the workers who still seemed to be running everywhere with shovels and hoes. A truck sped by carrying logs from the camp stockpile. Soldiers in mud-caked uniforms jogged toward the base camp and were being herded into two troop trucks that waited below the derrick. Shan watched as the first of the trucks sped away, racing through the camp and out of the valley.

  "Too late to beat the knobs," Shan heard someone say with an air of amusement. A broad-shouldered Tibetan in grease-stained coveralls stood ten feet away, speaking to no one in particular.

  Shan ventured closer to the man. "Those knobs already left?" he asked.

  "Their prize isn't the oil well," the man observed in a bitter voice. "For them a hundred resisters will beat an oil well every time."

  Shan closed his eyes and fought down a wave of fear. There was a meadow somewhere; a small, high meadow where Tibetans waited for Jokar, where they expected to find new strength in resisting Beijing- a leader who could be respected like no other, who would become a new symbol, a modern-day Siddhi. Somo and many of the purbas must be going there now, waiting for Gyalo to bring Jokar. Some of the purbas had guns.

  When he reached the trees on the far side of the valley, Shan ran. He did not know where the meadow was. All he could do was go up, east toward the highest spines of the huge mountain, praying he would see a sign or meet Tibetans on the way who might lead him to Jokar. He jogged until his side raged with pain then stumbled into a stream.

  As he knelt in the water, he looked about, gasping. The distant drumming from Yapchi began to seem hollow, and he began to hear it as a sound of frustration, not hope. No deity had come, no compassion had been found. And now, he thought as he splashed the frigid water on his face, when the soldiers or knobs found Jokar at a secret rally against Beijing, they would show no mercy.

  "Lokesh!" he heard someone shout, again and again, until he realized it was himself. No matter how urgently he wanted to find Jokar, another part of him was still desperately thinking of Lokesh, who would soon begin hobbling toward Beijing, where he would be killed or imprisoned.

  He launched himself out of the water, following one goat path, then another, always seeking the paths that would take him still higher. An hour passed, then another, and he began to recognize trails. He had circled far below Larkin's birthing water cave and was climbing again, near where Chemi had brought them over the mountain on their first day in Qinghai. Rounding an outcropping, he froze. A huge black drong stood in a clearing a hundred feet away, staring warily at him. But then he took a step forward and saw the red ribbons in its neck hair, some of which Shan and Anya had tied.

  "Jampa," he called softly, and stepped to the animal's side. Why was the yak here, and alone?

  Then with a chill he saw craters in front of the yak. Jampa's large black eyes seemed to be studying the craters, and for a terrible moment Shan thought Gyalo and Jokar had been attacked. But then he recognized the terrain. There were three craters, evenly spaced, in a straight line, and directly above them towered the snowcapped pinnacle of Yapchi Mountain. It was where they had first met Zhu, where the seismic charges had killed a flock of birds.

  Shan stroked the yak's neck and surveyed the landscape. The high meadow where the Tibetans waited for Jokar must be near. The yak must have delivered Jokar and wandered away. But there was no sign of anyone, no sound of equipment, no shouting from soldiers, no cracking of rifles. Nothing but the wind. And two geese flying high over the ridge, toward the south, over the massive backbone of the mountain, toward the sacred salt lake. He watched the geese until they were out of sight, then walked along the edge of the clearing. A tapering rock column, perhaps twenty feet high, rose from the northern edge, and on its base was a shadow of the mani mantra, the vaguest remains of words painted there many decades before. Like a signpost in a way, or a greeting. As he touched the ancient script he thought of the Rapjung lamas. They had come across the mountain to Yapchi for herbs, to debate with the Chinese monks. Yapchi Valley, as isolated as it seemed from the south, was even more cut off from the north, and so had become part of Rapjung's flock, a garden of herbs in a way for the lamas. And the Tibetans on this side of the mountain had inscribed a greeting to the lamas who came down to them. All that had ended on a terrible day a century earlier.

  He paced around the windworn column of rock. At its narrow top, incredibly, was a remnant of a prayer flag, a piece of red cloth. He wandered back along the clearing, still searching, climbing up the slope for a view of the top of the column, now two hundred feet away, and of the secret meadow that must lie beyond. As the top came into view he stared disbelieving. It was not a prayer flag.

  "Gyalo!" he called out. The monk was on the column, sitting lotus fashion, staring forlornly at the sky. Shan called repeatedly as he jogged back toward the clearing, but the monk gave no sign of hearing. Jampa himself seemed unconcerned about Gyalo. Yet the yak did seem concerned about something. The great beast was at the south end of the clearing now, and Shan thought he recognized sadness on its face. He walked to it, stroking its neck again, trying to understand.

  Gyalo and Jampa had come here, but no farther. They had been bound for the high, hidden meadow, for those who waited for Jokar to sit on the rock called the chair of Siddhi. Jokar, perhaps Winslow, had been with them but now were gone. The monk and yak did not seem upset or alarmed, just sad and puzzled. The yak's huge, liquid eyes gazed at Shan expectantly then, facing the high spine of the mountain it made a loud sound. Not a bellow, or a snort, but a loud wailing cut short by an intake of breath, like a sob.

  Shan gazed at the yak, at the forlorn monk on the column of rock, then began running up the treacherous goat trail.

  The sun was low in the western sky, washing the vast rock wall with a thin rose color by the time Shan found the narrow cleft in the rock where they had taken refuge from the helicopter the day they had first crossed Yapchi Mountain. Inside the cleft the stillness was like that of an ancient temple. No wind blew. No bird called. The dim light was the only evidence of the outside world.

  He followed the wall on the left into deepening shadows, past the little stone pillar with dust encrusted prayer flags, until suddenly he heard a wet, hissing sound. He froze, studying the shadows, until he made out two le
gs stretched across the path in front of him. It was Winslow.

  The American was so weak he seemed to have trouble raising his head to greet Shan. "Dammit, Shan, you have… to learn…" The American's words were punctuated with ragged gasps. He sounded as though he were suffocating, "… to stop investigating."

  Shan reached along Winslow's legs to the side pocket where he carried his electric light. As Shan switched it on his heart sank. A pink froth oozed out of Winslow's mouth, and was dripping onto his shirt. He stared at the American. There was no time for talk. He frantically searched the other pockets of the American's pants until he found his pill bottle. It was empty.

  "Took… the last one four hours ago," Winslow gasped. "He had to come. I wasn't going to let him try it alone. I carried him the first mile. Almost didn't make it. Old Jokar…" Winslow seemed to be forcing himself to smile, but the effort ended in a grimace. A wet, rasping rattle came from his chest. "He had to help me sometimes, let me hold on to his staff. I helped him, he helped me. We couldn't have made it without each other," the American said in a tone of wonder. He moaned, and tried to raise his hand to his head, but failed. "My head… I never knew it could hurt like this…" His eyes fluttered open and shut several times.

  Shan wiped the froth from Winslow's face. It meant pulmonary edema. His lungs were filling with fluid. The head pain meant cerebral edema.

  "We have to get you down," Shan said. His words came out in choking breaths. There was nothing to be done for Winslow, except descend the mountain, on the tiny, treacherous goat trail, in the dark.

  Winslow seemed to struggle to keep his eyes open. "Go… check on Jokar."

  Shan glanced up at the darkest part of the shadows ahead, which marked the entrance to the cave. "Jokar would want you to go down."

  Something touched Shan's hand. Winslow's fingers, grasping Shan's. He had the strength of a baby. The only thing that broke the silence was the American's wet, labored breathing.

  Winslow's fingers trembled. "What's that sound?" he gasped. "Like wind."

  There was no sound, no movement except the American's labored breathing. More of the pink froth dribbled down his chin. "I'm beginning to understand it," Winslow whispered. "This whole impermanence thing. It's a gift, like the old lamas said."

  The words hung in the air like a prayer.

  "I will get you down," Shan insisted, choking down his helplessness.

  "Not a chance," Winslow said in a strangely serene voice. "Not on that path. I would just kill us both. Hell I can't even stand, let alone walk. You try to carry me, we both fall."

  Shan followed Winslow's eyes to the top of the mountain, visible at the top of the huge fissure. It was illuminated in a brilliant golden light cast by the setting sun, as if they were in a tunnel that led upward to the heavens.

  "Jokar knew before," Winslow gasped. "I mean he knew before coming up here. He knew that day he touched me."

  Shan remembered the haunted look the lama had when he laid his hands on the American that day at the hermitage.

  "I understand now," Winslow said in his weak, croaking voice. "Everything has been about leaving it all behind, hasn't it?"

  Shan stood and pulled on Winslow's arm to lift him. The American, much heavier than Shan, barely moved. He stared at Winslow. The American had given up on his job, given up his passport, given up his possessions, given up his grief for his wife, given up everything that came before, the clutter of his life below. It was true. Since the day Shan had met him, when he had been defying death by riding the yak, the American had been leaving everything behind.

  "I think you… should go check on Jokar. Take the light. Then we can go down, no problem."

  Shan reluctantly stepped over the American's legs "We are going down that path. We can just crawl a little at a time. You'll be better when we descend."

  "I'll be better. You win," the American whispered, and his fingers made a tiny motion that seemed to be a gesture toward the cave.

  Inside there was a musty odor of incense that had not been there before, but the chamber was empty and no incense burned. Shan stepped to the healing thangkas and looked briefly at each one, trying to calm himself. At the long thangka where the collection of dorjes lay, a new one sat beside the sandalwood dorje, one of bronze, burnished with decades of rubbing. Nearby, leaning against the wall, was something else. A long wooden staff, as worn and weathered as the dorje. On the ledge beside the dorje he saw two small dust-encrusted shapes he had not noticed before. He reached out for one, shaking away the dust. It was a small bone, perfectly shaped. Shan cleaned the second. It seemed to be a rock, until he realized how light it was. He studied the objects again and discovered he had been wrong. The rock was a carefully crafted piece of bone. And the bone was an exquisitely carved stone.

  Shan pulled aside the thankga, releasing a stronger smell of incense. As he expected, there was a tunnel behind the old painting. He followed it at a sharp downward angle for nearly a minute before it leveled into a low, broad chamber. A second large thankga hung at one of the sides: a representation, not of the Medicine Buddha, but of a fierce protector demon, Rahula, a wrathful deity with several heads and a serpent body instead of legs.

  Shan grasped the gau around his neck then stepped behind the thangka. To the right a long wide ledge, three feet high, ran the length of the narrow, forty-foot-long room, as straight and square as a bench. To the left, at the center of the wall, was a small altar of polished, deftly fitted wood, with a sixteen-inch golden Buddha, behind the traditional seven offering bowls. He slowly approached the altar. The four bowls that were meant to hold water were dry and crusted with dust. A single stick of incense and the stub of a candle burned beside the bowls on a polished stone tray. On either side of the altar were several large clay jars, some nearly two feet high, filled with dried herbs.

  He stood in front of the Buddha, still clutching his gau tightly, and stared at it a moment before turning to face the lamas. He counted fifteen of them sitting on the long ledge then moved to the far end where the row started with a figure in a robe of coarse sackcloth, a stone bowl for mixing herbs at his side, his hands folded neatly on his legs around a string of coral beads. Not his hands exactly, but the bones of his fingers and the shriveled parchment-like skin that covered them. The man's head, little more than a skull covered with the same parchment, tilted back in a slight grin. One of the first of the lama healers, who had probably come to sit inside the mountain three or four hundred years before. Shan walked slowly along the wise old men. Some wore brocade robes and had gold urns at their sides, although most wore the robes of simple monks. At the foot of one lay a stack of wood blocks for printing a teaching.

  Then the line ended, near the entrance, and he was gazing into Jokar's face. The old lama was struggling no longer. He had come home. He had finished what he had set out to do when he left India. That's all it was, Shan knew now, with a strange, sad warmth. There had been no conspiracy. He had never intended to lead the Tibetans in resistance or stir up political controversy. There had been no motive other than to find closure to a long life well lived, to leave his bones in honored company, to give his bones to the mountain they all cherished.

  Jokar wore a serene smile on his face, which was so peaceful he seemed only to be in slumber. Shan touched the lama's hand, wrapped around his rosary. The warmth had left it, but it was not yet cold. The lama's other hand was resting on the leg of the shriveled man beside him, a figure with short white hair and a small wooden mixing bowl cradled in his lap. Jokar had known him. Lokesh had known him, too. Shan's old friend had recognized the sandalwood dorje in the antechamber as that of his old teacher, Chigu.

  He gazed back on the tomb. It had probably been only an hour since Jokar had placed the candle on the altar and lit the stick of incense. The lama had climbed onto the long stone bench with his colleagues, clasped his beads, and the leg of his old friend, then drifted away for the last time. Inside Yapchi Mountain treasures were buried, Dremu had said.


  Shan used the last of his water to reverently fill the offering bowls on the altar, before he suddenly remembered the American. He paused by Jokar a moment, then walked, backwards, to the thangka, climbed back to the entrance chamber and stepped outside, into the dusk. Winslow was nowhere to be seen.

  He searched frantically with the electric light, first at the deep crevasse beyond the stone pillar, then outside, on the path. There was no sign of the American anywhere. He must have dragged himself down the treacherous path, to make sure Shan would not risk his own life in trying to help him. The trail was empty but dim, with no more than a hundred yards visible in either direction. He stepped down the trail several yards, then peered over the edge with the light. Nothing was visible, nothing but blackness. It was nearly a thousand feet to the bottom.

  Returning to the cleft, he extinguished the light and studied the sky. Stars were appearing overhead, and below. A wind blew, and he realized his cheek was suddenly cold and wet. He wiped away a tear then stepped back into the cleft and began searching every corner, every indentation in the rock wall.

  Five minutes later he saw the tip of a boot, above his head, jutting out from a long, high crack in the rockface that ended a few feet off the ground with a flat rock like a shelf, looking out over the entrance to the cave. Shan pulled himself halfway up the rock and lit the shelf with the flashlight. Winslow was sitting on the small shelf, the rock wall pressing against each shoulder.

  "We must go now," he called out urgently, but the American was studying the shadows beyond Shan's shoulder and seemed not to hear. Shan scrambled up the rock and reached out to wipe the froth from the American's face again, then pulled back with a shudder. The froth was cold. Winslow's eyes, still open, had gone beyond seeing.

  He dropped to the American's side. A long wracking sob shook Shan's body. So many times Shan had wanted Winslow to return to his embassy, so many opportunities had come and gone for the American to find safety. Just a phone call, just a word at the Golmud base, just a request to Jenkins at the oil camp. He could have escaped. But each time he had chosen to stay.