Bone Mountain is-3

by Eliot Pattison

  Shan paused, leaning on the staff in his hand, Jokar's staff. He had not intended to bring the staff away from the burial cave but without conscious effort his hand had closed around it as he stepped back in front of the large thangka, as though the staff had willed itself into his hand. He had paused uneasily, studying the weathered staff that had served the medicine lama for so many decades, then he had hefted it and carried it out. Jokar and Shan knew someone who needed a staff.

  "The valley is being made again," Tenzin said in a tentative, perplexed tone.

  Shan sat on a rock, a sense of unreality washing over him. The army and the venture were surely going to stop the water, to plug the cascade on the mountainside. But a war had been waged in the valley, and they had been defeated by the mountain. Workers drifted toward the camp, dragging tools behind them like broken soldiers leaving a battlefront. A bulldozer lay on its side near the bottom of the slope, half submerged in the new riverbed where the bank must have collapsed. The derrick was in the middle of the little lake, listing nearly thirty degrees, the valley floor underneath it destabilized by the water.

  The only work underway seemed to be at the camp itself. The field where the celebration had been planned was a chaotic mass of men and equipment. The rope for the banner had broken loose so that the tattered Serenity slogan flew high in the sky, like a kite. Workers were frantically throwing ropes, barrels, buckets, and tools into the cargo bays of trucks. Half the trailers were gone. As Shan watched, a heavy truck gunned its engine and eased one of the trailers up the road that led out of the valley. The venture was retreating.

  "They were going to make a miracle," Tenzin said in an awed voice. "It was what Lokesh said in Larkin's cave."

  Shan studied the contours of the valley. It was indeed being made again. When the lake reached the northern end of the camp the road would become its outlet and the road itself would be washed out, converted to a stream, cutting the valley off from any access by trucks or tanks, or any other vehicle. At its southern end the water would reach to a few hundred yards of the village ruins. It had already turned the small knoll with the burial mound into a little island. At the rapid rate the water was accumulating, in a few more hours it would entirely cover the mound and reach the digging, the site of the Taoist temple. The wound that had lain open for a century would at last be sealed. Wash it, bind it, bind the valley, the oracle had said with their beloved Anya's tongue.

  Shan discovered that Tenzin had folded his legs under him and was sitting with his head cocked, mouth half open, his eyes full of wonder.

  There were others gripped by the same spell farther down the slope, sitting on a ledge overlooking the oil camp. Shan found Jenkins there, with Larkin and a dozen others who had the look of venture managers, including two wearing the suits of the visiting dignitaries. Tibetans, too, slowly drifted toward the ledge, all looking at the camp with the same confused expression.

  When Melissa Larkin saw him she stood and approached him on unsteady legs. Shan sat and waited for her.

  "They said you had gone to look for Winslow, and Jokar," Larkin said. "I was worried. Cowboy had such a strange look in his eyes last night. Like he was being pulled apart, or pulled away."

  "I found him," Shan said quietly. "He had run out of his pills. He's not coming back. There was a place he had to go to with Jokar."

  Somehow Larkin understood. Her legs gave way and she sat heavily beside him. Her hand went to her mouth and she bit a knuckle. Tears welled in her eyes. Her head sagged and she buried it in her arm, braced against her knees.

  "He wanted you to know, only you," Shan said when she finally looked

  Larkin smiled through her tears. "I thought he was just some lunatic bureaucrat when I first heard about him. Then when we met, it was…" Her voice drifted off and she stared at the birthing lake. "There was this connection between us. That night up in the mixing ledge, he said that maybe we had known each other in another incarnation. I thought he was joking. But lately I don't know what's a joke and what is…" She looked away a moment and rubbed her tears away on her sleeve. "He told me about his wife. I told him how my fiance had died in an avalanche. I warned him, I didn't think I could ever again…" Tears streamed down her cheeks. Jenkins, sitting thirty feet away, stared at her absently. "He came to collect my body but in the end… because of me," she sobbed.

  "No," Shan said. "It was where he was meant to be," he added, and told her of Winslow's note. This is where I belong, this time, the American up. had said. "He would have come," Shan ventured, "to see you at that sacred lake."

  Larkin nodded, gave a forlorn smile, then stared back at the lake. "Nothing happened the way I expected," she said toward the water. "Even this," she said, nodding toward the water. "We never expected so much water."

  "Once, when I was young, I had a teacher," a frail voice said.

  They turned to see Lepka standing close, gazing at them with sad, moist eyes. "He said there were places on earth where souls are magnified, ripening places he called them, because souls ripen faster there. He said when many people gather in such places it feeds the power of the ripening place, so that great events can happen, and the lives of many people get settled. He said this was such a place, and it was why the lamas never called it Yapchi Mountain, why they had their own name for it, an old name that has been lost. No one has used it for many years."

  Lepka looked back toward the snowcapped peak, then squatted by them, lowering his voice. "But my father knew it. It was a long name in an old lama's dialect that meant the Place Where the Spine of the Earth Protrudes. My father just called it Bone Mountain," he whispered. "Sometimes when old lamas finished ripening," he added, "that's where they would go to sleep."

  Shan returned Lepka's sad smile, and invited him to sit beside them, watching the valley as it changed before their eyes. "I think that Winslow," Lepka said to the American woman, "he and Jokar Rinpoche are in some bayal, laughing together right now." Larkin put her hand in the old man's, and squeezed it tight.

  "What will you do?" Shan asked the American woman.

  Larkin looked out over the water. "I was going to try to get back to him, to Cowboy. I guess I'll just go home. Zhu doesn't really want me dead, just out of Tibet." She turned and gazed back at the top of the mountain for a long while, squeezing Lepka's hand the whole time.

  "I never would have believed it if I hadn't been here," a deep voice said over their shoulders after several minutes. Jenkins had risen and was standing behind them, staring at the lost derrick. "It's finished. Lost nearly all the heavy equipment when the levee broke. Lucky to get the trailers out in time." It seemed he had decided he owed Shan a report. "I had a furious call from the States, they wanted to know what happened." He gazed at Shan as if about to ask him what had happened, then shrugged. "I said it was just unstable geology."

  "No," another voice interjected. Somo had appeared, her feet and pant legs streaked with mud, but her face lit with a serene expression. "I think it is the opposite of that."

  Strangely, they all seemed to understand. Jenkins gave a sound like a snort and offered a melancholy smile to the purba. She was suggesting it was the way the geology was supposed to be, the way the mountain could be expected to act once it understood what the humans were trying to do to it.

  "It's a loss, the entire damned project," Jenkins said. "All that mud, all that water. Hell, we hadn't even hit the oil yet. Economics will never support a project here now," he said with an inquiring glance at Larkin. "Jesus," he added, staring over his ruined work. "Jesus." He looked back at Shan. "The Tibetans from that village say that deity spoke. They say they are sorry it was so inconvenient for us, but he just spoke." Jenkins shook his head. "It's not my job to speak with deities," he added wearily. "I keep hearing that drum in my head. I'm tired of taking things out of the earth. I'm going home. But first I have to write a report." He shook his head and sighed. "I'll call it an act of god."

  "There was someone looking for you, Shan," Larkin suddenly r
emembered. "I think all those Tibetans who were fleeing, or going to that meadow. I think they just came here when the news spread." She pointed toward the opposite slope, where a makeshift camp of Tibetans had appeared.

  Shan stood on uncertain legs and began jogging down the slope. He found Lokesh sitting at the shore of the rising lake, washing stones. "Touch the water," he said excitedly. "It is different water." It was his tonde. Lokesh was washing his charm stones in the water.

  Shan bent to the water and touched it, cupped it in his hands and washed his face. The liquid seemed to tingle his skin somehow. Perhaps there was carbonation in the water, from its being pushed deep into the rock. "Already people are saying these waters have great powers," Lokesh added.

  Shan handed his friend the staff he had brought from the cave. The old Tibetan stared at it, then slowly, as if it might be painful to touch, he laid his fingertips on it, the way he might take a pulse. "I hope they had time to settle in," his old friend whispered, and Shan saw the sudden sadness in his eyes.

  Settle in. "Yes, they settled in," Shan said, and wondered how many of the Tibetans knew. Lepka and Lokesh both seemed to have understood where Jokar and Winslow had gone, as if they had been able to read something in the two men that had been invisible to Shan.

  One of the two army trucks remaining in the camp pulled out, behind a heavy truck towing the last of the trailers. The second army truck began moving but suddenly turned at a right angle toward the center of the valley, along the edge of the water. It stopped near the center, a hundred feet from where Shan stood, and the two soldiers in the front seat seemed to argue about something. Then the engine died and four soldiers climbed down from the bay. They moved slowly, without their usual aggression, with none of the usual fire in their eyes. They formed a small group at the tailgate, working something out of the bay, then abruptly cleared to the opposite side of the truck, and Lin appeared from behind them, alone, holding a long bundle wrapped in a bright white sheet. He looked at the Tibetans on the shore of the lake, who stopped what they were doing and stood, silently watching him. As Lin began walking toward Shan, Lhandro and Nyma stirred from where they stood in one of the ruined fields and approached warily. Lokesh pulled himself up with the staff.

  As Lin bent to lay the shrouded figure on the soil near Shan, Lhandro stepped forward, arms extended, and accepted Anya's body. Lin silently surrendered her, his hand lingering on the girl's covered head. "She should be with her people," he said in a whisper. He swayed for a moment, as if about to collapse. "But don't give her to those birds," he said to Lhandro. "Please," he added in his brittle voice. "I couldn't stand to think she'd been taken by the birds."

  No one spoke for a long time. The water lapped near their feet.

  "The valley can make room for our Anya," an old man said, and Lin turned to nod as Lepka stepped into their small circle. "There are also remains of Chinese, from that temple." Lepka lifted an object in his hand. A shovel. "I need your help," he said to Lin.

  The colonel stared, his eyes squinting as if he had trouble seeing what it was Lepka held.

  "I need your help, Xiao Lin," Lepka repeated gently, and pointed to the base of the slope, where several tall trees cast their shade. The old man turned with his shovel and the colonel followed him with small steps and downcast eyes, like a confused boy.

  Xiao Lin, Lepka had called Lin. Little Lin. Shan looked back at the soldiers. They stared at their colonel, some with fear, some with anger, some with wonder.

  As the two men dug in silence, Nyma released the cloth from Anya's face, letting the dead girl's long black hair stir in the wind. Nyma sang softly, the way Anya had sung her deity songs, as she tied the long strands in a braid. More of the villagers arrived, but none with a shovel. They watched from a few feet away, until suddenly Professor Ma was at the grave holding his box of relics. The villagers watched for a moment, then stepped forward to help as the old Han laid the box on the ground and began lifting from it the pieces of bone he had recovered from the Taoist temple. They wrapped each bone in a cloth, in khatas and kerchiefs pulled from the women's heads, and each villager took one of the shrouded bones and sat with it, speaking a mani mantra over it as the professor stepped to the hole and accepted the shovel from Lepka. He scooped the soil for several minutes as Lin and Lepka watched, then offered the tool to Shan. After several minutes of silent digging Shan was about to hand the shovel back to Lhandro when he looked up to see a line formed by the grave. Other Yapchi villagers were there, young men who must have been in the work crew, and Gyalo and Chemi, and at the end the Americans, Larkin and Jenkins.

  They worked for over an hour, Lin sometimes taking turns with the shovel, other times standing with his grim, sagging expression, working the fingers of one hand. Shan saw a flash of green in the hand. It was the stone Anya had found for him at the chorten, the tonde she had uncovered for Uncle Lin. Just when Shan thought the grave was done, Lin gestured for his troops to come forward. The soldiers had stood by their truck the entire time, watching uneasily, but when they arrived at the grave no words had to be spoken. A young Chinese soldier solemnly extended his hand for the shovel and dug for ten minutes. When he was done tears streamed down his cheeks. One of the Tibetan women pulled him to her, and he cried on her shoulder.

  Each of the soldiers dug, and when they were done two of them stood in the grave and accepted the bone relics from the Tibetans, arranging them reverently in the earth along the perimeter of the hole. When the relics were all deposited one of the soldiers paused, then wrote four names on a piece of paper and set it under one of the relics. The names of the four dead soldiers he explained in a whisper. At last Nyma kissed Anya's head and covered her face again. Lepka and Lhandro lowered her body to the soldiers.

  The shovel was passed around again, to fill the grave, then stones were laid over it. A cairn would be built, Shan knew, and perhaps one day a chorten. The silence as they stood by the grave was broken occasionally by a short prayer, or a quick word of remembrance.

  Lin said nothing over the grave, stepping away with a distant, hollow expression, pausing only to silently hand Lhandro the identity papers he had taken two weeks earlier. But when Shan turned he saw the colonel standing by the truck looking expectantly at him. "I sat in my tent with her all last night," he said when Shan and Lhandro approached. Then, on the hood of the truck, he solemnly unfolded a military map and pointed to Yapchi Valley. They were looking at the provincial border region, with new red markings drawn across a large area. "An order was issued this morning," he said in a weary voice. "From here-" he indicated a point immediately north of Norbu, the line of small ridges above the gompa, "north to the provincial border is now a hazardous materials zone. No one is permitted entry. Not the army, not Public Security. No access. Not even Religious Affairs," he said pointedly, in a voice that gained strength. He saw the inquiry in their faces. "I told central command it must be so, because of what I discovered when I was out there." He spoke in a flat voice, as though he were at a military briefing. "I will have signs erected."

  Shan and Lhandro stared at Lin in disbelief. The red hash marks covered an area of at least a hundred square miles, an area as large as a township.

  "And those men from Norbu. That Tuan was taken away by Public Security. Corruption like that, by a senior official," Lin said, shaking his head. "He's finished. Khodrak, they're taking him to a special knob institute," he said, and seemed to suppress a shudder. He meant a knob medical institute, where wayward officials were held, usually for years; where government doctors tried to cure their antisocial tendencies with drugs. "He won't be back."

  Lin folded the map and handed it to Shan, searching Shan's face a moment. Shan nodded slowly, and then Lin produced an envelope from his pocket, handed it to Shan and silently stepped toward the cab of the truck.

  "I don't understand," Nyma said, at Shan's shoulder.

  "Rapjung gompa and the Plain of Flowers has been liberated," Lhandro said in a disbelieving voice as he wat
ched the soldiers climb into the rear of the truck. "For Anya."

  Shan glanced back at the truck. Lin was at the cab door staring at someone sitting on the running board. It was Dremu, returning Lin's stare with a doubtful yet somehow stubborn expression.

  "This man says we killed his grandfather," Lin said wearily as Shan stepped to his side.

  "Not you exactly." Shan saw that Dremu nervously fingered the small leather pouch that hung on his neck. "It's just that… It's just that a Golok clan refuses its tribute."

  Lin looked at Shan in confusion, but Dremu seemed to carefully ponder Shan's words. He nodded solemnly, dug into the pouch and pulled out a single heavy gold coin. He stood and raised the coin toward the northeast, high, as though showing it to someone in the distance, then extended the coin to Lin with two hands, like a ceremonial offering.

  "He is paying us?" Lin asked as Dremu wandered away, an unfamiliar expression on his face. Not serenity, but probably the closest the Golok had ever been to serenity.

  "Returning it. That coin belonged to the Lujun."

  "What do I do with it?" Lin sighed.

  Shan recalled how Lin had used the stone eye. "You need a new paperweight," he suggested.

  Lin raised his brow, then his gaze drifted toward the grave. After a moment the engine roared to life. Without another word he climbed into the cab and the truck sped away, the colonel still watching the grave through the open window.

  Shan opened the envelope Lin had given him and read the single page it contained.

  "What is it?" Nyma asked.

  He read again, uncertain how to answer. "Somebody died," he said, and watched the truck climb out of the valley.

  The silent, reverent mood of the Tibetans continued the rest of the day as the last of the venture employees retreated from the valley. Some watched as the waters of the lake lapped near the new grave. Others helped with cooking fires lit in the ruins of Yapchi Village.