Bone Mountain (16 page)

The four of them walked uneasily down the track that led out of the village, moving in shadows when they could, following the rough road around a huge outcropping where they discovered a red utility vehicle parked, empty, at the side of the road. It was the kind of truck few Tibetans could afford, the kind primarily used in government service. As they stared uncertainly at the vehicle a scream echoed over the rocks. Shan hesitated, not certain where the sound had come from, then saw Lokesh jogging toward a narrow, two-foot-wide gap in the huge rock ledge that lined the road. Shan quickly followed as another loud cry split the still air, Nyma and Lhandro close behind.

The short passage opened into a natural, grassy bowl where slopes intersected at the base of the ledge. They had found the inhabitants of the village, and Shan realized the cries had not been from fear or pain, but excitement. Nearly fifty people sat on the slope or stood along the edge of the small flat clearing at the bottom of the bowl. Someone shrieked in surprise, another laughed. Not at Shan or his companions, for no one had seemed to notice their arrival. The population of the village was watching a man mounted on a huge, angry yak, one hand in the air, the other clutching a leather strap that had been fastened around the belly of the creature. The animal was bucking and twisting and, as Shan watched, it reared its broad head with a loud bellow that caused several children to run toward the back of the crowd. The animal was magnificent, probably not far removed in its breeding from the
drong,
the massive wild yaks that still roamed the Tibetan wilderness.

But Shan’s eyes did not linger on the powerful creature, for as surprised as he was to see the rampaging yak, he was even more startled to see its rider. The man was long-boned and lean, with straw-colored hair that hung over his ears. The rider seemed to be conversing with the yak, for each time the animal bellowed the man yelled out strange syllables. “Ya! Ya!!!!” the man called for no apparent reason, then “Yi ha!” and “Yo!”

“Listen to him,” Lhandro said at his side. “The man must be in great pain. Who would make a
goserpa
do such a thing?” he asked in alarm, as if it were a form of torture. “Goserpa.” Nyma repeated the word twice, gaping at the man. It meant yellow head, one of the terms Tibetans used for Westerners. To most of those in the region, Shan knew, seeing a Westerner would be as rare as seeing one of the nearly extinct wild yaks.

Suddenly the Westerner was thrown clear of the furious animal, his legs flying in the air in front of him, as if he were sitting. But somehow his hand still clutched the strap, and when he dropped he found his seat on the yak again. Three large men stood anxiously at the front of the crowd with ropes, as if trying to find a way to capture the yak. A small pale Tibetan in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie stood by a large boulder at the far side of the clearing, every few seconds scrambling behind the rock then slowly reappearing, staring at the rider with a terrified expression, timidly raising his hand every few seconds as though to get the foreigner’s attention.

With a sudden mighty heave the yak arched his back and the rider was off, shooting in a long arc through the air, arms and legs still working frantically as if the Westerner expected to return to the animal. But as the crowd watched in abrupt silence he soared across the little bowl and slammed into the ground with a loud groan. He lay flat on his back, without sign of life, as the three men with the ropes frantically closed around the yak. The little man in the suit produced a pair of spectacles from his pocket and slowly stepped forward to retrieve a black cap from the ground. Shan took a hesitant step toward the limp Westerner as Lokesh rushed past him.

The Westerner began convulsing. His hands clutched his belly and his chest began heaving. The little Tibetan in the suit shouted angrily at the three men with ropes, not in Tibetan but in Chinese. “Public Security will know about this!” he screeched, suddenly assuming an important air, shaking the black hat toward them. “You fools! People from Lhasa will have to come! You’ll see what happens when a foreigner—” the man stopped as he stared at the blond man on the ground. Lokesh, too, stopped, the worry on his face evaporating. The Westerner was laughing.

“Yeee–esss! Oh mama, yes!” the man shouted in English, the first words from him Shan understood, and his hands shot up in the air as if in celebration. He sat up, laughing so hard one hand returned to his belly.

The biggest of the Tibetans with the ropes, a burly man with three front teeth missing, hesitantly approached and pulled the Westerner to his feet. Immediately the Westerner embraced the Tibetan, then studied the man’s companions, who had the yak secured with two ropes around its thick neck. The tall, lean man pushed back his long hair, and grinned at the crowd.

The villagers were laughing now, some pointing with derision at the man in the suit, who stood with a surly expression, arms akimbo, staring at the Westerner as though deeply disappointed the man had not died. The blond man’s gaze settled on Shan a moment, his head cocked in curiosity, then he pushed another strand of his hair from his eyes and looked toward the man in the suit, the Tibetan who had shouted in Chinese at his countrymen. The Westerner paused for a moment, frowning, as if about to speak to the nervous little man, then his eyes drifted toward the yak and the joy returned to his face. Strangely, the animal returned the man’s gaze, its wide brown eyes seeming full not only of wild energy but also inquiry. The Westerner stepped in front of the animal and suddenly, before the yak could react, reached out, grabbed its head, and kissed the animal on its wet nose. The villagers broke into a cheer. The Tibetan in the suit lowered his head and covered his face with one hand.

“How much would it take, to buy this king of beasts?” the Westerner asked the three men loudly, in perfectly intonated Tibetan.

The men stared at him in confusion but after a moment quickly huddled to confer. “A thousand RMB,” the tall one announced solemnly. The animal was clearly a prized possession. The price, though not much more than a hundred American dollars, was probably more than many of the villagers earned in a year.

To the obvious astonishment of the three men the stranger produced a wallet and counted out the asking price. When he had finished he studied the assembled villagers and approached a young woman. In a loud voice that carried through the hushed crowd he offered to buy one of the two red ribbons that bound her braids. She blushed, then nodded excitedly. He filled her palm with coins, accepting the ribbon with a small bow, then tied the ribbon tightly to a lock of the yak’s mane. With the ease of one accustomed to working with animals he slipped the ropes off the yak’s neck, then slapped its flank with one of the rope ends. The animal burst away, shooting through the shocked crowd and galloping up the slope like a young stallion. It did not stop until it reached the top of the first ridge where it turned and gazed defiantly over the hushed villagers, who suddenly burst into another wild cheer. The Westerner had not only given the magnificent beast its freedom, the ribbon meant that he had marked the animal as one ransomed, a mark of protection to honor the deities. Typically ransoming was for beasts marked for slaughter and such a ribbon would free them from the butcher, assuring them a long life. The ribbon on the yak meant it was freed from labor and could not be used by men again without offending the gods.

Half the villagers gathered excitedly around the three men who stood staring at the vast bounty they had suddenly received. Many of the others ran to the Westerner, some just reaching to touch him, some thanking him for his act of homage, others praising his riding of the yak. Still others held back, working their beads as they watched the foreigner with round, awed eyes.

After a few moments the stranger took a tentative step toward Shan.

“If you are hurt,” Shan ventured, “we could look to your injuries.”

The man reacted with an amused smile. He studied Shan, and Lokesh, with the same cocked head and curiosity as before, then turned to gaze back at the yak, which still surveyed them from above. “With an animal like that, I could get rich back in Oklahoma,” he observed, in his perfect Tibetan, his blue eyes sparkling.

“I don’t understand what you were doing,” Shan said.

The man smiled again and surveyed Nyma, Lokesh, and Lhandro, nodding at each one as they returned his gaze with looks of bewilderment. “It’s that impermanence thing,” the stranger declared, extending his right hand to each of them. “Shannslow,” he repeated, and when he took each of their hands he covered it with his left hand, not shaking it but squeezing it like a tiny embrace as he heard and repeated each of their names.

“Why would you ride that animal?” Shan tried again.

Winslow ran his hand through his hair. “I told you,” he said, and spoke toward Lokesh. “It’s just like your
chod
ritual,” he said matter of factly, “except that cowboys do it by riding bulls.”

Shan stared at the man in astonishment. Chod was one of the rituals Gendun had often discussed with him. It was usually conducted only late in a monk’s training; the monk sat for hours alone with the bones at a sky burial site, often overnight, to experience and contemplate the frailty of human existence. It was a brutal ordeal for most, from which some returned babbling incoherently.

“Cowboys?” Nyma asked slowly. Winslow had used the American word, for which there was no Tibetan equivalent. “What is cowboys?”

“Mostly you ride horses around mountains, looking for cows and singing,” Winslow said with another grin.

Nyma nodded, slowly at first, then quite vigorously, as if now she perfectly understood about cowboys. Shan realized that somehow the American had made it sound like a pilgrimage.

A young girl appeared between Lokesh and Lhandro, holding out a blue ribbon toward the American. Winslow squatted by her, a hand on her shoulder. “The yak just needed the one,” he said in a gentle tone. He unfastened the button that fastened his shirt pocket and pulled out a photograph, printed on heavy stock, half the size of a postcard. He extended the photo in both hands, like a gift, and the girl accepted it with wide eyes. She cried out and turned, unable to contain her sudden joy. Those near her crowded close and called out in turn. They seemed just as excited as when the American had released the yak.

The photograph, Shan saw, was of the Dalai Lama. In years past Tibetans had suffered imprisonment for mere possession of such a photograph. The pictures were still officially banned and routinely seized by the authorities. In the campaigns of repressions that periodically surged through the land they were used as evidence of political unreliability. But Tibetans treasured such photos, and Shan had seen many displayed on the portable altars used in dropka tents.

He studied the strange American as the man lifted the girl, who called excitedly for her mother now. Shan had encountered such foreigners before, men and women who roamed Tibet looking for adventure, or enlightenment. Lokesh called them wanderers, which made them all sound lost. Shan always kept his distance from them, for they seldom had the proper travel papers and always attracted the attention of Public Security or army patrols. The real danger wasn’t for the foreigner, who, if picked up would simply be deported. Those found with such foreigners would be detained and questioned, because talking with foreigners evidenced dangerous propensities.

The girl pointed toward the gap in the boulders that led to the road, as if she had decided that was where her mother had gone, and wiggled out of Winslow’s arms. The American smiled as he watched her disappear. “You’re not from the village,” he said to Lhandro in a conversational tone, then shifted his grin toward the distant yak, which was standing at the crest of the ridge. As he did so Shan noticed movement far up the slope opposite the animal. A man on a grey horse.

“We came with a caravan,” Lhandro replied.

The horseman looked like Dremu, Shan realized, and the Golok seemed to be waving at them.

The American’s head snapped back toward the rongpa. “From the north? West? Not on the road?” He glanced at Shan. “All of you?” When Lhandro nodded, Winslow quickly produced a map from his hip pocket. “Show me,” he said with a new, urgent tone. “Tell me who you saw, where exactly you were. I need to know if—”

A frightened cry split the air. The little girl shot back out of the gap, frantically crying for her mother. In her hand was a jagged piece of paper that showed a man’s smiling mouth and chin. Someone had ripped away the top half of her treasured photograph. Shan looked back up the slope at Dremu, who had stopped and dismounted. The Golok wasn’t waving at them, Shan realized with a chill, he was frantically trying to call them away, to warn them.

But in the next instant Nyma darted into the gap in the rocks, Lhandro at her heels. Lokesh pulled on Shan’s sleeve as though to restrain him, to keep him from following. “Go,” the old Tibetan urged, pushing Shan toward Dremu. “Get to the Golok.”

People were scattering, running up the slope in every direction. When he looked back Lokesh was gone. Without a second thought Shan ran through the gap toward the road.

He stepped into the brilliant sunlight to find a body lying on the gravel. It was Lhandro, moaning, holding his scalp. Blood oozed between his fingers. Nyma knelt over him. Lokesh stood nearby, his arms pinioned behind him by two large Chinese in the green uniforms of the People’s Liberation Army. A dozen more soldiers stood deployed in a V-shape facing the opening in the rock to trap anyone emerging from the far side. Two grey troop trucks were parked on the road behind them, each with a fierce looking snow leopard painted on the front door. Between the heavy vehicles, sitting on a folding metal chair, was an officer watching with satisfaction as his trap filled. A cigarette dangled from his mouth. As Shan watched the man began writing on a clipboard balanced on one knee, with the casual, amused air of a scorekeeper at an athletic event.

Someone grabbed his hand roughly and Shan suddenly realized he had been bound to Lokesh, his left wrist fastened to Lokesh’s right wrist, not by manacles but by a thin piece of wire, its ends twisted tightly together so that any movement was painful.