Bone Mountain (76 page)

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 watched 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.

When they had finished their evening meal, everyone stepped back to the lake, sitting beside it until the sun set. Other Tibetans began to arrive, the remnants of those who, misunderstanding, had gone to the upper slopes to wait for the old lama. They touched the water and spoke excitedly, some cupping it in their hands to drink, others filling bowls and tipping the water over their heads.

Shan sat near the dying embers of a fire beside Lokesh as a new silence overtook the camp. A dog barked and he looked up to see a purba, one of the hardened young men he had seen with a gun at Norbu. The purba nodded first to Shan, then to Tenzin, and stepped aside. In the shadows behind him stood the man with the striped face, the Tiger.

“It’s time,” the purba general announced to Tenzin in a terse voice. “On the other side of the hills there is a truck waiting to take you north.”

Tenzin studied the hard features of the purba’s face. “I’ve gone far enough,” he said quietly. Shan followed his gaze into the shadows. There were others with the Tiger, five or six others waiting in the night.

The rough, guttered tissue of the Tiger’s face moved up and down as he repeatedly clenched his jaw. He shot an accusing glance at Shan. “People need the abbot of Sangchi on the outside. We have plans.”

“The abbot of Sangchi no longer exists,” Tenzin declared, then slowly surveyed the ragged group. Nyma, who had not stopped crying since the burial. Gyalo, who silently stroked Jampa’s nose. Dremu, sitting in the shadows, staring uncertainly at the fire. Dzopa, the big dobdob, lying on a blanket, his horse-like face downturned, still filled with the pain of losing Jokar. “People need me here,” Tenzin said. “We—” he embraced those around him with a sweep of his arm. “We are going to rebuild a gompa. We are going to build a place where Tibetans can learn to heal.” He glanced toward Shan then turned back to the purba. “I made a vow to some old men in the mountain.”

“Rapjung?” the purba asked in an impatient, disbelieving voice. “That old place can never—”

“If there is going to be a new Tibet,” Tenzin replied, “it must be built on the old.”

“But the army will come,” the Tiger protested. “The howlers will come. Anyone trying to build a gompa will be arrested.”

“No,” Lokesh said brightly, “that colonel, he has made Rapjung a hidden land.”

Tenzin grinned at the old Tibetan. “With strong backs and strong hearts we can build anything,” he said. As if to emphasize the point Jampa took a step forward and snorted. “Rapjung gompa was never destroyed, only its buildings. Jokar Rinpoche taught us that. It was just a treasure that had to be uncovered again.”

“The government will still look for you. The army. The howlers, they hate you now. They will seek you out as a political enemy now.”

“No,” Shan interjected. “They will not.” He pulled out the paper Lin had given him. “Anya’s Chinese uncle wrote a report.” Shan read it to them. It was dated the evening before, when he and Tenzin had been in the lama’s cave. It explained that while in the mountains looking for reactionaries, Colonel Lin had encountered the abbot of Sangchi, had even captured him and confirmed his identification. But the abbot had tried to escape. There had been a struggle and before Lin’s own eyes the abbot had fallen off a high cliff into a gorge. Colonel Lin was writing to certify that the abbot was dead.

“That Zhu filed a false report about Melissa Larkin dying,” the purba leader pointed out. “They know he lied.”

“This is a colonel in the army,” Shan said. “A decorated colonel from an elite unit.”

The purba sighed and nodded, conceding that no one was likely to challenge Lin’s report. He surveyed the Tibetans who stood by Shan. “All our plans,” the Tiger said in a dark voice. “All the people,” he added, looking at Somo now. “Drakte,” he said pointedly.

“Drakte,” Somo said slowly, as she stepped to Tenzin’s side, “would have said he and I should build a gompa.”

The purba leader stared at her in silence. He studied each of them, then gave a final nod to Shan. “Lha gyal lo,” he said quietly, and slipped away into the shadows.

But one of his followers lingered, and stepped to the edge of the firelight. It was Melissa Larkin, wearing a fleece cap and a herder’s vest. “I’m staying,” she said to Shan, with a new glint in her eyes. “There is much more to understand about how the earth works in Tibet.” She began to turn, then paused. “Someday Beijing will discover there is a new headwater for the Yangtze,” she added, before she followed the Tiger into the night.

Shan watched the fire with the others for a few more minutes, then wandered into the night himself along the water, watching the stars, until suddenly he saw a flicker of light halfway up the slope. A small campfire. He searched the landscape around him, making sure no one followed, then walked quickly toward the light.

*   *   *

When Shan rose at dawn, he found a dozen Tibetans standing at the edge of the village ruins looking down into the valley. Dremu had appeared and was pacing back and forth as if, like the others, he had grown wary of approaching the water. Shan walked along the line of Tibetans, searching the faces of Nyma and Lhandro, who stood at the front, then Nyma sighed and he followed her gaze to the water. In the rapidly brightening light he began to understand. The making of the lake was finished. During the night the waters had risen above the gap at the end of the valley and were flowing out, past the saddle of land. The lake had reached its natural level, and the buried river was still pouring out of the side of the mountain. The derrick had fallen, disappearing under the water, and the burial mound was now submerged. The debris at the camp had been covered. The lake was serene. The sediment had rapidly settled, so the waters seemed made of deep blue crystal.

Strangely, Shan remembered Larkin’s words about meeting Winslow at the sacred lake. He had thought she’d meant Lamtso. But she, above all, had known the water and the rocks and the contour of the land. She had known it would shine like a blue star in the mountains, like one of the lakes the Tibetans called sacred.

They gathered around their cooking fire and spoke of what it meant, then watched solemnly as Shan brought a small object wrapped in felt to the fire. With a knowing look Lokesh extended his open palms and Shan laid the object on them and opened the bundle.

“Victory to the gods,” Nyma murmured.

Lepka and Lokesh smiled and nodded, as if they had always known Shan would return the eye in the end.

“Who was it?” Lhandro demanded. “Who attacked you?”

“The eye has come back,” was all Shan would say. “It has been watching over the valley for many days.”

“Yes,” one of the villagers whispered. “We heard it.”

The Tibetans gathered close to touch the chenyi stone with tentative fingers, and offer it prayers.

Then Nyma stepped away from the group and stared at Shan. “But here we are,” she said with eyes suddenly round and wide. “It’s been the biggest mystery all along.”

The words hushed everyone. All eyes turned to Shan, who stared at Nyma. Oddly, he realized he was grinning. Something in her words seemed wonderful to him. Despite the murders, the lies, the destruction—the real mystery for Nyma still was where to seat her deity.

“But I know the place now,” Shan declared. “The mountain has made the kind of place where deities like to live,” he said, and asked Lhandro if he knew where poplar saplings might be cut.

Two hours later a small procession moved to the water’s edge, where a coracle had materialized, hastily made of poplar boughs and skins. Two narrow paddles, carved from planks saved from the houses, were in the little boat. Shan unwrapped the eye’s felt blanket for the last time and held the jagged stone over his head. Excited murmurs rippled through the assembled Tibetans.