Bone Mountain (18 page)

The colonel’s lips pursed in a silent snarl, and the officer stepped closer to the American. A green nylon rucksack hung from one of Winslow’s shoulders. In his hand was a water bottle, from which he drank with a casual, unconcerned air as several soldiers closed about him.

“You’ve made a serious mistake,” Colonel Lin growled. Lhandro’s papers, still in his hand, disappeared into the pocket of Lin’s tunic.

“Someone has,” Winslow agreed, in English, and slipped his free hand into a pocket of his rucksack. The nearest soldier lifted the barrel of his gun. The American produced a thick carrot, leveled it at the soldier as if it were a weapon, then raised it to his mouth and loudly bit off the end. Several of the freed villagers, watching now from beyond the army trucks, laughed.

“You have no idea,” Lin said icily. With a gesture of his hand two soldiers sprang into action, one leaping to each side of the American, pinning his arms behind him. The rucksack and water bottle dropped to the ground. The carrot flew through the air and landed at Shan’s feet.

Winslow seemed not to notice the rough treatment. “Not much,” he agreed, in Mandarin, grinning at Lin as the soldiers, still holding his arms, pressed him against the rock wall.

The sergeant jammed his hand into the breast pocket of the American’s shirt and pulled out a bundle of papers, with half a dozen photographs of the Dalai Lama, which he dropped in disgust, grinding them into the soil with his boot. The American looked forlornly at the ruined photos. “You know,” he sighed, “they say that man is the reincarnation of the Compassionate Buddha.” His gaze drifted toward Colonel Lin, and Shan shuddered. The American was deliberately badgering the colonel. Lin returned the American’s stare, then pointedly looked at the cattle prod. With a nod from him the soldiers began dragging Winslow toward the first truck.

Lin spat a curse under his breath and turned back to Lhandro, the prod still in his hand. The American was but a momentary distraction. A clanging of metal rose from the rear of the second truck and a soldier began tossing leg manacles onto the ground.

Lin stepped back to Lhandro and abruptly hit his face with the back of his hand. “Answer my questions!” he snarled, and hit him again. The farmer gave a small, surprised whimper, then swayed. Lin looked at his hand and frowned again. There was fresh blood on it. A metallic snap punctuated the momentary silence. The sergeant had fastened the manacle on Lhandro’s ankles.

As Shan watched Lin, the icy knot in his gut grew tighter and more painful. Everything—first Lhandro’s evasiveness, then the American’s appearance and his disrespectful attitude, and finally the stain of blood on Lin’s fingers—had only served to fan the flames of Lin’s rage. His hand made a tiny, almost imperceptible motion toward his belt, snapping open the holster that held a small automatic pistol.

“You are going to write statements,” Lin barked. “Every detail of how you arrived at this place, why you are traveling so far from your home, who else is with you, whom you encountered on the way, where you have been for the past three months.” As he spoke, the soldier who had produced the manacles held up a roll of heavy, wide grey tape. It would be used, Shan knew, to seal their mouths as they wrote. “You will write them separately, and if your reports do not perfectly match you will be charged with conspiracy to obstruct administration of the people’s justice.”

“Hell, General, you’re not Public Security,” Winslow said in a loud, glib voice. Never in his life had Shan encountered anyone so foolish as to deliberately mock a senior PLA officer. “Just the damned army.” One of the soldiers twisted the American’s arm behind him, and pain erupted on Winslow’s face. But as the soldier kept twisting the American forced his mouth back into a grin.

Suddenly the short Tibetan in the business suit emerged from the rocks. He stared in dismay at the American, and seemed about to shout. He turned to the colonel and opened his mouth, but still no words came out. Then his shoulders sagged and he stared at the black cap in his hands, stepped toward Winslow and placed it on the American’s head. Everyone stared, confused, except Winslow, who laughed.

An instant later the sergeant gave a cry of alarm and darted to Lin’s side, handing him Winslow’s documents. As Shan stared in confusion the colonel’s eyes grew round, then he threw the papers on the ground with a look of disgust and barked out a series of orders so quickly Shan could not understand them. The men behind Winslow released him. The soldier holding Lokesh’s hat threw it at the old Tibetan and followed the others of the squad into the second truck. The sergeant released the manacles from Lhandro and threw all the chains, and the colonel’s chair, into the rear of the truck.

Colonel Lin stepped backwards toward the first vehicle, silently watching Lhandro and Lokesh, fury back in his eyes. In another thirty seconds he had climbed into the lead truck and both vehicles were speeding down the road. As the Tibetans watched in disbelief Shan unwrapped the wire from his wrist, then bent and picked up the carrot and the papers. He studied the American’s passport a moment and looked up, more confused than ever. The passport in his hand said that Shane Winslow was an American diplomat.

“It was just a piece of paper,” Nyma said in confusion as she watched the American and the short Tibetan jog toward their own truck. Winslow had said nothing after the soldiers sped away, only cast a satisfied grin toward Shan and his companions before gesturing his nervous escort toward the red truck. They seemed in as much a hurry to leave as Lhandro, who had sent Nyma to run and bring the caravan to the road.

“But it had powerful words,” Lokesh suggested in a tentative voice.

Shan glanced at his friend, who had been taught that there were adepts who could write special, secret words that would unleash powerful forces upon those who read them. In a sense Shan knew Lokesh was right. He could not imagine any paper a foreigner could show a man like Colonel Lin that would cause him to reverse his behavior, except the very paper Winslow had produced. Lin would gleefully help deport a troublesome foreigner, and would not hesitate to detain suspicious citizens in front of a foreigner. But whatever he had had in mind for Shan and his companions, he would not do it in front of a foreign government. And Winslow’s paper said he was the U.S. government, or at least its only representative for probably hundreds of miles.

Still, that did not explain why the American was in such a hurry to leave. It was as if, although not concerned about confronting the ruthless colonel, he was nonetheless worried that Lin would report his presence to other authorities. Perhaps, Shan suspected, his own American authorities. Shan could not imagine a reason why an American diplomat would be in such an unlikely place, a forgotten village in a remote corner of the changtang wilderness.

Winslow tossed his rucksack into the back of the truck amid a throng of villagers who were quietly offering their gratitude, some pressing forward to touch him for good luck again. He opened the passenger’s door as the nervous Tibetan, still in his suit coat, started the motor, then reached into his rucksack and produced a stack of the Dalai Lama photographs, the first of which he handed to the young girl whose photo had been destroyed by the soldiers. Shan stared at the strange American as he distributed a dozen more photos to the eager villagers. Whatever his official duties might be, Shan was certain they did not include passing out contraband photos of the exiled Tibetan leader.

As Winslow raised a foot into the truck the first of the caravan sheep appeared, trotting with Anya and Tenzin down the dirt track that ran through the center of the village. The American paused, as if the sheep reminded him of something, and he turned toward Shan. He hesitated a moment, pulled a map from the dashboard of the truck, and trotted to Shan’s side. Suddenly Shan recalled the American’s inquiries just before Lin had arrived. He had been asking about their travels through the mountains.

Winslow held the map, folded to show the region north of Lhasa into Qinghai Province. “You came from the west?” he said. “Can you show me? How close to the Kunlun?” he asked, referring to the vast range of mountains that divided Tibet from the Moslem lands to the north, running his finger along the provincial border. “Which way? What route?”

“South, we came from the south,” Nyma volunteered, from behind Shan. Winslow nodded energetically, and his gaze shifted from the map to the sheep.

“Those bags,” he said in a surprised tone. “Salt? I’ve heard that in the old days caravans—by god it is, isn’t it?” he exclaimed to Shan, in a tone that almost suggested envy. The American’s fingers began roaming across the map. “That means one of the big lake basins, right?”

“Lamtso,” Nyma answered enthusiastically.

The American nodded slowly, and traced his finger along the space between the lake and the village.

“You are looking for someone?” Shan asked.

Winslow nodded. “An American woman. Missing for several weeks. Presumed dead.”

“We saw no Americans,” Lhandro interjected from Shan’s side. The rongpa cast a glance of warning at Shan. “We thank you for your help,” he added hurriedly. “We will watch for her.” Lhandro pressed Shan’s arm, as though to push him way.

The American paused and studied the two men. “Your route is to the north,” he said with a speculative look in that direction. “But you turned onto the road to the east.”

Lhandro stepped away and gestured for Shan to follow. “Thank you,” the Tibetan said again.

Winslow grinned, held up his hands as though in surrender and backed away. He climbed into the truck and the nervous little man behind the wheel put it into gear and sped down the road, away from the village and toward the northern highway that would take them to Lhasa.

As Shan watched the truck an animal brushed his knees, and he looked down. The ram with the red-spotted pouch was at his side, looking up at him with frightened eyes.

*   *   *

Every creature in the caravan, from the silent Tenzin to Anya to the sheep and dogs seemed to sense an urgency that afternoon. They moved at a half-walk, half-trot, not pausing for food or drink. After an hour Lhandro stopped and unloaded one of the horses, redistributing its cargo among the other four horses as he nervously watched the road. His eyes heavy with worry, he gave the horse to one of the Yapchi men, who trotted away to scout ahead, and in the adjacent hills. Dremu had not appeared since their encounter with the army.

When they had covered the ten miles of road two hours of daylight remained. Lhandro pushed them on, up the trail to the north until it curved, blocking the road from view. As the others rested Shan and Lhandro studied the steep, rough track that led north, looking for any sign of soldiers. Lin sent the man on the horse into the hills ahead. Everything seemed to have changed since the village. Colonel Lin, from whom the eye of Yapchi had been stolen, now knew about a band of travelers from Yapchi. He knew Lokesh was from a lao gai camp. He had lost them as prisoners only because of the American’s intervention. But Lin would not give up, and his soldiers were trained for setting traps in the rough mountain terrain. Such men could easily elude the caravan scout, or trick him into thinking the path was safe.

“The colonel doesn’t know our path,” Shan said to Lhandro. “And he doesn’t know about the sheep.” In the hours on the road Lhandro had seemed to transform from the spirited, energetic rongpa to a man carrying a heavy burden of fear. The colonel had taken his papers and kept them, had discovered he was from Yapchi. He had felt Lin’s manacles and for a few terrible minutes Lhandro had no doubt believed that he would spend his remaining years in a Chinese prison, losing everything, even, or perhaps especially, losing the chenyi stone.

“I didn’t have to bring Anya on the caravan,” the farmer said. “It should have just been me and the older men. And we shouldn’t have involved Nyma. She wants to be a nun so bad.… She needs to be a nun.… This is not a nun’s work. Some of us would gladly…”

“Somehow,” Shan said, “I don’t think Anya or Nyma would have let you deny them the opportunity.”

Lhandro offered a weak smile, then whistled sharply and began moving up the track with long, determined strides. At first only the dogs followed him, but he did not call out, he did not turn, he did not gesture for the others. The largest of the mastiffs paused when Lhandro had gone a hundred feet, then turned and barked once. The sheep raised their weary heads and began to follow. Anya stood and extended her hand to Lokesh. The two walked by the sheep, hand in hand, and Anya began to sing one of her songs. Slowly, groaning as they lifted their exhausted limbs, the others of the caravan silently rose and followed.

After a mile Lhandro gestured Shan to his side and pointed up the trail. Shan raised his hand to shield his eyes and saw their scout, two hundred yards away, unmounted, facing them with his hands raised above his waist, open, as if in an expression of chagrin. Lhandro and Shan jogged toward the man.

As they approached the scout disappeared behind a large outcropping. Lhandro halted and led Shan off the trail, around the backside of the outcropping. They edged around the rock to see the back of a large man in a bright red nylon coat and black cap sitting before a tiny metal frame that hissed and produced a small blue flame. Their scout squatted beside the man, drinking from a steaming metal cup. As Shan ventured forward the man in the red coat turned.

“Only have two cups in my kitchen,” Winslow declared, extending a second mug toward Shan. “You’re welcome to share. No butter, no salt. Just good Chinese green.” Shan accepted the mug, savoring the aroma of the green leaves for a moment. He saw the others staring at him, then self-consciously extended the mug to Lhandro. He blinked for a second, something blurred in his mind’s eye, and he saw his mother, sitting with him, patiently watching a steaming porcelain pot as green leaves infused the water. The pot had a picture of a boat on a river by willow trees. It was the way his memory sometimes worked now, after the knobs had used electricity and chemicals on him. His early years lay down a long dark corridor, where doors sometimes, but rarely, were unlatched by a random, unexpected event. Not events as such, but smells, or other sensations, even the inflection in someone’s voice.