Black Flame (9 page)

But as soon as the stick was lodged firmly in place, the fear that had been emanating from the man began to disappear, jolting Kelsang to his senses. He knew from the man's laughter that it was too late. The stick was over two yards long, and it kept a secure distance between them. No matter how much he barked and bit, Kelsang had no way of getting close to the man. It didn't take him long to realize that such efforts would be futile. He remained calm, wanting to know what was going to happen next. Previous experience had taught him that there was no point in wasting energy on useless struggle.

Kelsang was led into the truck, and the other end of the stick was tied firmly to a bar inside, restricting him to a gloomy corner at the back. He could lie down, but his neck had to remain upright, resting against the icy cold side of the vehicle. Cardboard boxes and other odds and ends were scattered around in the back, giving off unpleasant smells. Kelsang began to sneeze again and again, and with each sneeze, the rope around his neck grew a bit tighter.

He regretted not escaping earlier. He could have easily bitten through the rope that had tied him to the tree, but he had been observing some kind of pact between the canine and human worlds. Maybe he should have bitten through the rope as he was being led into the alley, but it was too late now. He had no way of removing the stick wedged under the rope at his neck, no matter how hard he tried.

The truck drove all night until they reached a small town just before dawn.

Kelsang was led out of the truck and up a mountain slope on a trail that went behind a large building. Four or five people surrounded him as they climbed in the first light of day. He knew what was about to happen — he could feel the impatience in the air. He tried with all his might to pounce on the man with the dark cheeks, but he only managed to push him back as the man grappled with the other end of the stick.

A series of lassos came whistling toward Kelsang. He jumped to dodge them, but the man on the other end of the stick prevented him from getting away. One after the other, the lassos landed around his neck before they were quickly pulled tight. Bewildered, Kelsang thrashed about, stepping on one of the ropes around his neck and pulling it even tighter. Soon he lay panting on the ground like a rice dumpling wrapped in a leaf and criss-crossed with string.

These men had done this before. Within minutes they slipped a steel-reinforced leather collar around his neck, screwed a five-yard-long metal chain to it and cut off the ropes.

Kelsang stood up only to find that he was now attached
by a set of chains to a pole screwed into the ground. Once everything was in order, the last man edged back slowly. He suddenly dislodged the stick wedged under Kelsang's collar and ran away. Kelsang was not about to give up this opportunity and let out a whole night's worth of pent-up anger as he began to howl, scratching at the man's shadow.

The man was so frightened he fell to the ground but quickly scrambled to his feet again to a chorus of shouting. His face was ash white, and his leather jacket lay in tatters at his feet. It hadn't taken long for Kelsang to overtake his two-yard head start.

“He's not bad, Boss. Much stronger than the last one.”

“You don't come across one as good as this every year,” the man with the dark cheeks replied. “I just didn't think I'd find him in the city. You usually only see the good ones in out-of-the-way places.” He fished out a pile of bills from his wallet and handed them to the shivering man. “Buy yourself another jacket.”

If only he'd escaped when he had the chance, Kelsang thought sorrowfully. He'd never get out of here now.

After the men left, Kelsang slowly calmed himself down. At least he was back on his long-lost beloved grasslands. And his sense of smell was returning after the torment of the journey. He could smell his collar, the metal chains, the wooden pole, the grass beneath his paws, and another mastiff.

Another mastiff. Kelsang spent the rest of the day thinking about this.

Even though he had a collar around his neck and was yet again weighed down by heavy chains, the most important thing was that he was back on the grasslands. All his memories of running around as a puppy suddenly came back to him. Dragging his heavy chains, he ran in circles around the pole barking madly, the grasslands spinning around him. Since his chains were fastened to the pole by a metal ring, he could run around like this as much as he liked.

From a distance, Kelsang looked like a seething ball of black fire galloping around on the slope. He didn't try to bite at his chains or the pole. That was obviously pointless.

The man with the dark cheeks stood outside the Sichuan restaurant at the edge of town watching his booty.

“Om mani padme hum,”
he sighed, finding comfort in the Buddhist mantra.

Not long ago, that very pole had been home to another mastiff — a little one from a nearby farm. There was no comparing him to Kelsang, yet a man from Chengdu had bought him for thirty thousand
yuan
.

As dusk approached, the golden crown of the Potala Palace was once again bathed in the plateau's evening sun. The painter shuffled out into the courtyard carrying a bowl of milk mixed with
tsampa
barley flour. But Kelsang wasn't lying in the corner on his mat. The old man paused, pondered for a moment and then stooped to pick up the mat, which was covered in dog hair. All this thinking made him tired in a way he had never felt before, but eventually he came to a satisfactory conclusion. There had, in fact, never been a Tibetan mastiff in his courtyard. Deciding to give the matter no more thought, he walked to the door and emptied the contents of the metal bowl into the street. Stray dogs would come along later and lap it up. Then he threw the mat up against the wall and went back inside to paint.

That night the wind came and carried Kelsang's mat away. The next morning, the painter shambled out to water his plants. Kelsang had never existed, he was sure of it. While there was still a hazy image of a dog lingering in the back of his mind, he thought of it as he did one of his
tanka
paintings that had been taken away and was now hanging in a temple somewhere.

A few days later, someone arrived wanting to buy the famous mastiff, knocking and waiting patiently outside the door. But the old man — older than the carved stones that lined Bakor Street — said that there had never been such a dog.

It was as if none of it had ever happened.

5

MEETING HAN MA IN THE WILDS

EVERY DAY A WAITER
emerged from the big building at the foot of the mountain and threw a leg of mutton or half a rack of ribs to Kelsang, who was tied higher up on the mountainside. The man would then place a rusty bowl of water, filled to the brim, just within his reach.

No one dared approach Kelsang, not only because the boss had instructed them not to, but because he was becoming more and more wild. His resentful eyes had a cold, crimson stare. Everyone who saw him was convinced he would attack and bite off a leg, given the chance.

After he had eaten, he ran around the pole, plowing the grass within a five-yard radius as he attempted to release the energy he had stored up during the day. White shards of sheep bone were scattered all over the ground like the floor of a slaughterhouse that hadn't been cleaned in years.

Kelsang's coat no longer had its beautiful gloss, partly because of the constant rain and sleet of early autumn, but his body was also preparing for winter. His fur stuck out rudely at every angle, as if he'd been draped in a felt rug. From a distance, he looked twice his usual size, and anyone seeing him for the first time was convinced he was a bear.

Kelsang's only relief was to run around his pole. The earth around it was stamped with paw marks. Sometimes he would sit in front of the pole and look out at the bleak narrow town and the people walking around it. He barked at every car that stopped at the Sichuan restaurant down below. He didn't know why, but any new stimulus made his body tremble with excitement. Sometimes he even closed his eyes and leapt forward, tugging at his chains. The desire to chew and swallow everything he saw burned in his young chest.

Truck drivers would stop to fill up on spicy Sichuan food after their long, difficult day on the road. Once they'd scraped their plates clean, they would climb up the hill, belching bitter chili burps, to get a closer look at the monster who had barked at them as they drove into the parking lot. This quickly became part of the experience of eating at the bustling restaurant.

No one came close, but they all stood admiring Kelsang from afar, gazing in fascination at his blood-smeared mouth. Many of the truck drivers wanted to buy Kelsang, but the man with the dark cheeks was asking too high a price, and deal after deal failed. The men would drive off in different directions, but Kelsang's new owner wasn't worried. He knew there would be more people with whom he could bargain. He was in no rush. He simply couldn't let this fine mastiff go for anything less than the sum he was asking.

Even on the windiest, snowiest nights out on the Tibetan plateau, Kelsang could always find shelter behind the yurt in among the fleeces, but here he had nothing. Still, he was remarkably resilient in the violent snowstorms. The damp and cold only made him stronger and more determined. Early one morning, the people in the building woke to find three feet of snow blocking the door. They had no choice but to send one of the young waiters through a window to dig them out. To his amazement, the dog on the hill was running around in the dazzling white like a ball of fire, stirring up a cloud of snow around him.

Mastiffs are not naturally inclined to enjoy human company, yet Kelsang still found life on the slope lonely. His resentment drove him to bite anything he could, but there was nothing to satisfy his desire to attack. Any remaining sheep bones had long since been crunched to powder.

The man who fed Kelsang was becoming more frightened of him every day. Before the legs of mutton he threw even hit the ground, Kelsang jumped up and chomped them in two. His gnawing sounded like a hurricane as he quickly reduced the legs to tiny pieces, not so much from hunger as from his desire to feel his teeth tearing through flesh. When the man caught sight of Kelsang's bone-speckled muzzle and his sleepless amber eyes flickering in the jungle of his fur, he took a few steps back. Who knew what the dog was thinking.

Kelsang had lost hope of ever leaving this place, and besides, he was beginning to get used to it. He had been confined for so long that he had come to believe that the iron chains and leather collar, which had rubbed away revealing the metal cable underneath, were a natural part of his body.

Every night, when the moonlight shone down into the valley and all was quiet, Kelsang, no longer able to control the desire that had been welling up in him, would point his nose at the yellow sphere in the sky and howl with all his strength. Once he started, he would continue in broken gasps all through the night.

And so it was that Kelsang fell into the world of mastiff trading. From the moment he was taken from his home, he entered a world that he hadn't chosen and didn't understand. If the jeep hadn't driven up to the camp, he probably never would have left the grasslands. He would have grown old with the sheep, in green pastures under blue skies, just like other mastiffs. There would have been occasional fights with wild animals, and he would have killed some of them. And there would have been the chance — a very small chance — that he would have made a mistake and succumbed to an attack himself. But if he had lived long enough out on the grasslands, he would have been sure to continue his own pure mastiff bloodline.

But everything had changed. He had left that life forever, and never again would he be a shepherd dog. He had even lost the freedom to run the streets of Lhasa by night. As long as no other mastiff appeared, he was probably destined to remain tied up on this mountainside, to age slowly as the man with the dark cheeks dreamed of making it rich. Either that, or he would be bought by a wealthy man and spend the rest of his days guarding a mansion.

The rusty red mastiff was suffering the same treatment that Kelsang had. It was being led out of a truck by a long stick. It was already showing signs of age — the color of its coat was starting to fade and two clumps of bronzy-gold fur were sprouting above its eyes. As the helpers led the new mastiff down from the back of the truck, Kelsang noticed that their sleeves were slathered in blood.

But this mastiff was eerily calm. It didn't react as the loops of rope hurtled over its head, not even when the ropes pulled it to the ground, and the men slipped the metal reinforced collar around its neck and fastened chains to it.

They screwed another pole into the ground.

After they removed the ropes, the dog lay down and didn't move. The waiters who wanted to see it lash out at its new surroundings were disappointed. Even the man with the dark cheeks felt uneasy, though there was little chance of losing money. He could buy these shepherd dogs off the grasslands for a shockingly low price whenever he wanted. Tibet was full of good deals to be made if only you knew how. There was a rumor among the waiters that the boss had recently bought a piece of jade carved into the shape of an eggplant for just a couple of cans of gas and then had it escorted by two cars to Chengdu. No one knew how much he got for it, but it was a lot — let's put it that way.

The waiters left, their expectations dashed. Kelsang pulled on his chains and charged at the newcomer, barking, but the other mastiff ignored him. These days Kelsang found that once he started barking, he couldn't stop — at least not until he was overcome by sadness. But this time he felt none of the satisfaction he usually did, and so he calmed himself and lay down.

Toward evening, two waiters came with hind legs of mutton. The rusty red mastiff just lay where it was, not touching the meat that was thrown to it. Kelsang didn't understand why, but for the first time in his life he didn't feel like eating, either. He was too busy examining this new mastiff. The two waiters, so used to seeing Kelsang crunch his way through flesh and bone, were disappointed again and left, cursing.

The other mastiff really was getting old. Stiff brown hairs poked through its dull, faded red coat, and Kelsang could detect the smell of old age. Of all the smells he had stored up, it reminded him most of old leather. He didn't know what it was about this dog that fascinated him so much. Whenever the dog happened to look up, it seemed to gaze straight through him into the distance. This indifference made Kelsang panicky. Having been tied up for so long, he simply wasn't prepared to accept that he was to be ignored like this. He jumped up and pulled at his chains. But he didn't start barking — not because he couldn't, but because he didn't want to anymore.

Kelsang lay back down and followed the other mastiff's unmoving gaze. He himself regularly fell into such trances, but he would usually stare at the village at the foot of the mountain or at the restaurant glinting in the sunset with all the tour buses lined up outside. After staring like this for a while, some kind of mirage would appear — a summer pasture, the first snowfall of his memory, even the streets of Lhasa at night.

Every evening around this time, Kelsang would be woken from his thoughts by a clump of mud walloping against him, usually thrown by either the man with the dark cheeks or one of the waiters. Having spent the whole day bumping along Tibet's terrible roads, the busloads of tourists had eaten their fill, and reinvigorated by the heat of the chilis, were climbing up the hill to take a look at the huge furry monster tied up on the slope.

Kelsang's response would send the hushed crowd running, the sound of his clanging chains adding to the terrible noise coming from his throat. Only when they were farther away, where the restaurant owner guaranteed they would be safe, did they look back at Kelsang. This dog wanted nothing more than to chomp them to pieces, and they were too scared to get any closer. The tourists wasted no time snapping photos of the enormous dog as he tore around his pole, jumping up every now and again like one of Don Quixote's warring windmills. As soon as his paws hit the ground, he was ready to pounce again.

The man with the dark cheeks stood behind the crowd watching proudly. He was going to get his due. One day the wind would change, and that greedy smile would be stuck on his face. This was how business was done. The tourists would take their photos and videos home and show them to friends and family, spreading the word that in a village not far from Lhasa there was a fine mastiff for sale. Someone was bound to buy the dog for the price he wanted.

The rusty red mastiff continued to stare out toward the horizon, made fuzzy by the last of the evening sun, out past the endless gravel landscape to where clouds, swollen with rain, dotted the sky.

Kelsang couldn't see anything extraordinary.

By the third day, the other mastiff's meat had begun to give off a foul smell that put Kelsang off his food. He could only eat half of what he was given. The rusty red mastiff didn't even look at the meat, the fresh or the rotten. It just lay there, completely still. Occasionally, at night, it would get up and loop around its pole a few times, its chains dangling, before plopping back down on the ground with a thud. By the fifth day, its body was skin and bones, and it couldn't get up. Kelsang had never imagined that a mastiff could lose weight so quickly.

One of the waiters came with a bowl of milk, went right up to the rusty red dog and placed it beside it. Kelsang watched as the mastiff looked up and stared into the distance, paying no attention to either the waiter or the milk.

On the eighth day, as evening drew near, the rusty red mastiff, now as thin as a piece of felt, tottered to its feet. This came as a shock to Kelsang. He smelled the reek of death in the wind. It was the same smell that had come from the dog shot on the streets of Lhasa. Kelsang hadn't seen a sign of life from the other mastiff all day. In fact, he thought it was already dead.

The rusty red mastiff hobbled a few steps, making no sound, as if its paws were padded. Then it leaned against the pole, its head weighed down by the chains, and a trickle of urine ran between its legs. It looked around dimly, as if making sure that everything was real, before lifting its head slightly to sniff the air. Capturing its last moments, it looked over at Kelsang.

And then it died.

Kelsang's wailing brought the people from the restaurant, but it was a different sort of wailing from the hopeless sounds he had been making in the past weeks and months.

Kelsang howled for an hour after they carried away the rusty red mastiff. Then he made a low sound, like the beating of a metal drum, and stopped abruptly.

The next day, the waiter arrived to discover that Kelsang hadn't touched the previous day's meat.

“What a mess!”

The man with the dark cheeks followed the waiter up the mountain to take a look at Kelsang and then rushed to the village to find a vet.

The medicine the vet prescribed was stuffed into his meat, but despite its alluring smell, Kelsang wouldn't touch it. He was tired and weak after all his wailing, and that feeling was scarier than hunger. He felt that everything in his life was slipping away. He had lost interest in all of it.

Kelsang was on a hunger strike.

On the third day, Kelsang tried to get to his feet, but he felt dizzy. If he went on like this, it wouldn't be long before he, too, would lie down never to get up again. But he wasn't destined to end his days in such a pathetic manner. His rescue was to come in the form of a yak.

Every evening at sunset, a herd of yaks was brought back from pasture to the village. That day, as the herd passed the Sichuan restaurant, one of the yaks suddenly charged into a
dzo
, an animal bred from a cow and a yak, jumping wildly, its fur flying. In a frenzy, it then began to gallop up the slope toward Kelsang.

The village's sheep and yaks sparked Kelsang's fading memories of summer out in the pastures, and recently he found himself staring at them even more than before. An urge would well up in him to steer them toward better grass, and he would stand up, eager to set off, until the sound of his clanking chains dragged his thoughts back to his barren mountainside and pole.

Perhaps the yak had been poked in the behind by a bull, or a fly flew up its nostril, or it was simply excited because it was mating season. Whatever the reason, it came stomping up the mountainside, creating a cloud of dust behind it like an armored truck.