Bone Mountain (71 page)

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 from 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 with 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 from 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.

“You were in Amdo to stop the true records of the township from reaching the Bureau,” Shan continued, “to stop Deputy Director Chao from receiving such records and passing them on to Lhasa. But then you recognized the Tibetan who was there, delivering those records. You had seen him in Lhasa with the abbot of Sangchi, the night the abbot disappeared. You realized it probably meant that the abbot was not in the south. But you never told anyone in Lhasa. You let the search continue in the south because you had your own plan to capture the abbot. Find the abbot and let him proclaim the success of your campaign. Not the Serenity Campaign. Your campaign. Not Lhasa’s campaign. Not Beijing’s campaign. A new campaign to take over enforcement at gompas from Public Security, with a new security force formed within Religious Affairs. A force like the one you founded with Director Tuan, without authority from Lhasa.” Ultimately the top officials would care little about the murders. But Khodrak had committed a crime far worse than murder. He had conspired against an official party campaign. He had been disloyal.

“Lies!” Khodrak hissed again. “You will see,” he said to the platform, “I have saved for you the greatest prize of all.” He turned, searching the crowd, calling for Padme. “The proof of all their treason!” The young monk pushed back into the crowd and reappeared with the black leather satchel, which Khodrak hastily opened, producing a large bundle wrapped in cloth, which he triumphantly handed to the woman at the front of the platform.

As the woman in grey took the bundle two more of the dignitaries joined her, watching over her shoulder as she unwrapped it. When the cloth fell away Khodrak gasped and seemed about to strike at Padme with his staff. But Padme, too, stared at the contents with disbelieving eyes. It was Drakte’s battered account book, which Shan had last seen at the cave the night before. The woman leafed through the pages then glared at Khodrak.

The woman seemed to shake with anger. Then she removed her straw hat. “Soldiers from Public Security,” she barked out. “Reveal yourselves in the next sixty seconds and you will avoid punishment. This is an order from your general!”

The howlers needed no prompting, no discussion. Some cursed, some groaned, but all quickly shed their white shirts and trotted away, toward the camp. Two men in the official grey tunics of Public Security marched to Khodrak and Padme. Khodrak stared at the woman, leaning on his staff, gripping it with both hands, the color drained from his face. Another knob approached Shan, hand extended. Shan gave him the photograph of the cottage, still in his hand, the folded facsimile with the phantom names that Shan knew would tie back to Tuan, and finally the slip of paper Chao had given to Drakte the night before he had died. The knob studied Shan uncertainly, then looked back at the woman on the platform, who extended her hand for the papers to be brought to her.

Suddenly Padme pointed to the slope where Larkin and the Tibetans had been working. “The pagans!” he shouted with a strange mix of anger and hope in his voice, and darted through the soldiers, still pointing at the slope.

Somo had reached the place where Larkin had been digging, Shan saw, for a boulder there was now covered in bright crimson paint. The deity had revealed itself again.

Lin shook his head wearily and spoke to an officer at his side, who sprinted toward the army encampment. Most of the officials in the stand continued to watch earnestly, as if everything they were witnessing had been all part of the planned entertainment.

With a creak of metal the battle tank emerged from the shadows by the oil camp, its officer standing half out of the hatch on the top of the turret. It halted a hundred yards from the camp, its barrel quickly shifting to the range, and fired three shots in rapid succession.

The side of the mountain at the south end of the valley instantly exploded, as it had when the tank had attacked the first deity rock, raising a haze of dust and debris over the slope. But the third shell struck with a much larger explosion than the first two. Larkin’s crew had been busy not only digging, but planting the explosives there. The tank officer stared in confusion and raised a pair of binoculars toward the ball of fire and cloud of debris that followed, then shrugged at Lin. Several of those on the platform clapped, apparently pleased with the way the army had punctuated the ceremony with fireworks.

Lin stared, first at the slope, where the dust was rapidly clearing, then at Shan.

Suddenly Lin’s mouth fell open and he, with most of the crowd, gasped as they saw the massive creature that had appeared at the edge of the dig. Jampa stood there, smelling the exposed earth. The yak slowly stepped to the chest where Ma stored his artifacts and sniffed at it, touching it with his nose. While everyone watched the animal in silence, it stepped slowly forward, directly between Shan and Khodrak, past Lin, then stopped and stared at the distant slope. It cocked its massive head, then raised its nose high in the air and gave a long, extraordinarily loud bellow. Everyone seemed to be staring at the animal, some in amusement, others with somber, awed expressions, as though they sensed the yak was trying to communicate with them, or with something in the mountains. As if in reply a muted thunder came from the distant slope. Not really like thunder, Shan realized, but like a rumbling from inside the earth.

“Earthquake!” one of the venture workers cried out.

Still no one moved. All eyes followed those of the mighty yak now, to the slope, where the rumbling seemed to increase in intensity, the sound of pressure building. An odd muted rushing sound like a small eruption could be heard, followed by a blur of movement on the slope.

The brittle silence continued, broken at last by Jenkins, who leapt from his seat on the platform as he stared with sudden alarm at the slope.

“Jeeee—sus!” the American manager cried in a desperate voice, then vaulted from the platform and began running toward the nearest truck, barking out orders for the bulldozers to follow. He paused at the truck door to look at the scene. “Mother fucking army!” he shouted, firing each syllable like a shot from a cannon then, looking at his perplexed workers, pointed to the slope. “Go! Go! Go!” he yelled, and leapt into the truck.

Binoculars appeared in Lin’s hands. He stared in confusion, but for only a moment, and when he lowered them there was something like awe in his eyes. He looked at Shan, his eyes momentarily filled with sadness, then he hardened again and spoke rapidly to the officer beside him, who lifted a small radio unit and began barking orders. Soldiers began running toward the derrick. Lin leaned toward the officer again, and after a moment of hesitation, disappointment clouding his face, the officer spoke into the transmitter. The soldiers escorting Larkin and the Tibetans, only a hundred yards away now, jogged away from the column. Their former prisoners seemed not to notice, for they were running to Larkin’s side, cheering and pointing toward the slope, some of them waving khatas in their hands.

Lin looked at the glasses in his hand, then stepped to Shan’s side and slowly extended them.

But Shan did not use the lenses to examine the site of the explosion. Instead he desperately searched the slope for any sign of Somo. If she had lingered at the rock she could not have survived. There was no sign of her.

“I don’t understand,” Professor Ma said over his shoulder.

“The deity has spoken,” Lhandro offered. He stood a few feet away, supporting his father, who gazed at the slope with a huge grin, tears streaming down his face. Beside them Jokar knelt at the wounded dobdob’s side, speaking in low tones, his hand resting on the crown of the Dzopa’s head. Strangely, the dobdob pointed to the yak.

“Water,” Shan said, his own voice filled with wonder. “There was an underground river, and now it has been released.” The words seemed so simple, the reality so impossible. Melissa Larkin had never been trying to locate her hidden river for the mere sake of geology. She and the purbas had been trying to find it in the hope they could use it against the venture, to alter the course of the oil project.

Trucks roared up the valley, some packed with workers, others pausing to pick up workers by the platform, still others speeding by with piles of shovels, picks, and buckets in their bays. The people on the platform began drifting away, confused, asking when the ceremony would continue. Except for the knobs who had shed their white shirts; they stood in a tight group, listening with shocked expressions at the woman on the platform, who pointed fingers and seemed to be hissing at Khodrak. When she finished Khodrak was enclosed in a small knot of his former guards who, appearing eager to prove their remorse for straying, wrenched away his staff and pulled him toward one of the white Bureau trucks.

“The contour of the valley,” Shan said with a sigh, watching as first Jampa, then Gyalo, stepped to Jokar, “means the water will go to the derrick, the lowest point.” The dobdob clutched at Jokar’s arm a moment, then released it with a sound like a sob, and with the monk’s help the lama slowly climbed onto the yak’s broad back. Lin stepped slowly to the edge of the dig and conspicuously turned his back to Lepka and the others who sat by it. Shan looked at Gyalo again and recalled the monk’s strange words on the slope that morning, that Shan had solved the puzzle. All Shan had done was to tell Lhandro that he had heard a strange rushing noise in the ground near the first deity rock. Gyalo led Jampa and Jokar away, up the ridge, unnoticed amidst the chaos at the bottom of the valley.

Shan looked back at the dig. Tenzin had disappeared into the trees.