Bone Mountain (67 page)

The Goloks did not retreat but stared in confusion, the tips of their weapons drifting toward the floor. In their moment of hesitation the dob-dob sprang. The pole spun through the air and slammed into the head of the bald Golok, an instant later into the skull of his companion. The two men hit the floor together, slumped, unconscious.

His eyes no longer wild, the dobdob searched for Chemi. “Rinpoche,” he said to his niece in a voice like quiet thunder, “sometimes he forgets he is mortal.” He said it as if it explained something important.

“You were with him in India,” Shan said in a faltering voice, and settled his gaze on Chemi. Her uncle was the dobdob, and the dobdob was the guard companion of the medicine lama. “You came with him from India.”

The man did not respond, did not seem to hear Shan. He hefted his new staff in the air, as though to get its balance, pulled his tattered backpack from the floor, then marched out of the cave. His face had the glint of a feral beast.

“My uncle…” Chemi murmured in a strange blend of fear, awe, and even affection as she gazed at the opening of the cave. “I didn’t know he could become a…” She looked at Shan. “I didn’t even think he could stand.”

Maybe he couldn’t, Shan thought, not until he had heard that Jokar was a prisoner. Since coming to Yapchi Mountain Shan had begun to realize that there were many ways of healing.

“They were just old stories, about how the men in our family became dobdobs,” Chemi said, wonder still in her voice. “But that was all so long ago, from before Rapjung was destroyed. Dzopa used to stand in his barley field and talk about Rapjung, but never about … I never knew. Dzopa was away when it happened, the destruction of the monastery. He had come to our village because my father was sick and never went back.”

“He found Rinpoche,” Lokesh said, sharing her awe. “In India he found the last lama from Rapjung.”

Shan nodded. “They came all the way together, with Dzopa protecting him.” He remembered Dzopa’s frantic warning about lamas being burned. He had caught Padme trying to burn the Plain of Flowers. He had probably seen the smoldering ruins at Rapjung. “What did he mean when he asked how long Jokar was off the mountain? Why this mountain?”

Chemi stared vacantly toward the pallet where her uncle had lain. “The stories said they were supposed to go, the oldest boy of each family from the villages around Yapchi, to become monk policemen. Enforcers of virtue, my father always called them. He said it was a pledge we made to Rapjung a hundred years ago.”

Shan studied the woman, then looked at Lokesh. The two searched each other’s faces. It almost sounded as though the families had been told by the lamas of Rapjung to perform penance. But the families had been the victims of the Yapchi massacre a hundred years ago.

“Drakte,” Lokesh whispered.

The dobdob had come that night not to kill Drakte but to do what he always did, to protect the only Rapjung lama still alive. Somehow Dzopa had seen Drakte as a threat. Shan remembered the dark bruise on Jokar’s neck and the sling the purba had carried. Surely Drakte would not have attacked the lama. But the dropka with Jokar that night had said the lama had been attacked.

“It must have been some terrible mistake,” Somo said, as if sharing the same thought. Her voice shook. “People had been following Jokar and Dzopa, and knobs were treating the lama like a criminal.” She looked at Chemi, biting her lower lip. “Dzopa didn’t kill him,” she said as though to comfort the woman.

“He is going to fight those soldiers,” Chemi said in a voice heavy with despair. “He is the last man living from my family.”

Shan knelt by the unconscious thieves and dumped the small pouch onto the floor. The Tibetans who had been robbed quickly retrieved their belongings, then Shan studied what was left, an assortment of silver chains and other jewelry. He picked up a tiny leather pouch on a long hide thong that seemed familiar. He stared at it a moment, then sorted through the booty until he found a lapis bracelet, and an elegant pocketknife with a folding spoon. He studied Somo a moment, who knelt by Lokesh again, then rose, the knife, bracelet, small pouch in his hand, and retrieved his own sack of belongings.

“Lokesh walks slow with his cast,” he said to Chemi, but looking at Lokesh, “Keep him off the steep slopes. And be sure he doesn’t stop for tonde today. Make him safe.” I will find him, Shan almost added, but knew it was unlikely he would leave the valley, except in manacles.

“You can’t go,” Somo protested.

Shan looked back at Lokesh with a sad smile. “There is a deity to patch.”

Chemi stepped toward Lokesh and knelt at the old man’s side as though to confirm she would respect Shan’s request.

He saw Lhandro waiting by the entrance for him and nodded at the farmer, then knelt at Lokesh’s side. “The rongpa have trucks. Stay with the others. They will find the purbas, and the purbas will get you back to Lhadrung.”

His friend reached out and tightly grasped Shan’s hand. “We started this together,” Lokesh said in a tortured voice.

“And I would never have made it without you, old friend,” Shan said, his voice cracking. He squeezed Lokesh’s hand then quickly stepped to the cave entrance.

“Things will be better,” Lokesh said to his back, “after I return from Beijing, you’ll see.”

Shan turned a last time and looked into his friend’s eyes. “I will never see you again if you go to the capital,” he said, fighting a torrent of emotion. He could not stop Lokesh from sacrificing himself in Beijing unless he stayed with him. But he had no hope of saving Jokar unless he went to the valley.

Lokesh grasped his gau with one hand and waved goodbye.

Somo and Nyma were close behind him as he reached the ledge over the water. “Lha gyal lo,” he said quietly to them, and looked into Somo’s eyes. “You can still get Tenzin north,” he said, “still complete the plan. Avoid the oil venture. Go in secret. You must complete the plan,” he said, seeing the grim determination on their faces. “Something must be completed,” he added, trying hard to keep defeat out of his voice. He took a step toward the trail. The two women matched his step.

He stopped and threw his arms up in frustration. “I have to go,” he pleaded. “It’s over. Drakte would be pleased that you have saved Tenzin.” But they continued to follow him up the trail. Suddenly a figure appeared in the mist ahead of him. Tenzin stood there, gazing at the swirling cloud seeds. A few feet above him stood Lhandro and Winslow, his backpack in his hand.

“North,” Shan said, like a plea. “People are waiting outside for you,” he said to Tenzin. “In America.”

The lama kept gazing at the mist. “There is no path to the north today,” he sighed.

“How could it be better for both you and Jokar to be lost?” Shan asked in his pleading tone.

“Going north and leaving Jokar with soldiers, when I had not tried to stop it, if that happened then I would surely be lost,” Tenzin said with a small smile.

Shan looked into the swirling waters. Maybe any hidden world would be beautiful, and better, because this one was so painful. They had no chance against the soldiers and howlers. But for the Tibetans it would still be better, for their souls, to be prisoners in the gulag, or dead, than to walk away and abandon Jokar.

“How,” Tenzin asked slowly, “can you insist on going while denying us the same opportunity?”

Because, Shan wanted to say, I am the only one with nothing to lose, the only one who will not be missed, the only one with such a huge debt to repay to the lamas. But then Somo grabbed the pouch off his shoulder and ran up the trail.

The purba had gone almost a mile before Shan and Nyma caught up with her. She was standing alone, on a ledge that looked north and west over the rolling, starkly beautiful ridges that led to Yapchi Valley. In one hand she clutched the turquoise stone given to her by Drakte. She was wearing a look he had not seen before, the look of a fierce warrior, the look of a protector demon. A chill went down his spine. Somo seemed to be saying goodbye to something. Was it to the mountains that would forever be changed when the oil started flowing? Or was it to life itself? She was descending to do battle with the Chinese soldiers. He looked at the stone in her hands. Drakte had wanted to be a monk, but Beijing had prevented it. She had wanted to be a teacher, but Beijing had prevented it. Then, because they had both been cast away by Beijing, they had met and fallen in love. But they could not stay together, not in this life, because Beijing had prevented it.

Somo turned with a forced smile, then glanced back up the trail where the figures of Lhandro, Winslow, and Tenzin could be seen in the distance.

An hour later they were walking silently, grim-faced, through the ruins of Chemi’s village, toward the chorten where they had promised to meet Anya. When the crumbling chorten came into view, Nyma pointed, relief flooding her face, toward a small figure walking around the chorten, then quickened her pace. Shan and Nyma were less than a hundred yards away when Shan stopped and held up his hand.

“It’s her, I know it is,” Nyma exclaimed, and began waving to get the girl’s attention. She followed Shan’s gaze and her hand slowly dropped. Lin sat on the ground forty feet from them, a chuba arranged under him like a blanket. The colonel was watching Anya with a melancholy smile. He wore his uniform, except a small piece of heather extended from his breast pocket. As Shan approached he glanced up and the smile disappeared.

“They say oil should come today or tomorrow,” Shan said as he squatted beside Lin. “A delegation of venture officials are on the way.”

Lin nodded slowly.

“I remember those snow caterpillars,” Lin said suddenly, in a reluctant, hollow voice, as if compelled to continue the conversation Shan had offered the day before. “Suddenly last night I just remembered, how those women swept the snow, like you said. Sometimes little sparrows would be numb with cold and get swept up in the snow. My father would go down to the street sometimes when the caterpillar passed, to check for sparrows. If he found one he would put it in his pocket and we would take it home, then release it in the afternoon when it warmed.

“One day the block captain called a meeting,” he continued, referring to one of the watchers who kept political order in residential units. “She had a burlap bag which she dumped on the table. It was dead sparrows, maybe twenty dead sparrows. She said from now on it would be our patriotic duty to collect the sparrows from the gutter after the sweepers passed, and eat them. Because the Chairman insisted that all resources be put to use for the cause of socialism. Then she gave us instruction on the approved methods for killing sparrows.”

Shan stared sadly at Lin. He remembered children from his own youth filled with revolutionary zeal, stoning pigeons and seagulls, parading with the carcasses of mice. It was how the Chairman shaped good little soldiers, his father had said bitterly.

“So we killed the sparrows,” Lin continued. “We ranged far beyond our block when the snow came, just to find and kill sparrows. One day I caught my father with a live one in his pocket and I told the block captain. I thought it was a joke I played on my father. But that afternoon I came home and there was a meeting. A tamzing. My father was in the middle, with welts on his face, and a sign pinned to his shirt that said reactionary pig. They wouldn’t stop until my father killed that sparrow, in front of everyone. He was crying when he did it. The only time I ever saw my father cry.”

They were silent a long time.

“Why,” Lin said, looking at his hands, deeply perplexed. “Why would I have forgotten that until yesterday?” He glanced at Shan awkwardly, as if he had not intended to speak the thought out loud, then gazed toward Anya in the distance. “She’s getting one more tonde,” the colonel said. “Said that sometimes old chortens attract good tonde. Says I need one to keep rocks off my head.” He spoke in a sober voice, as if he had come to fervently believe in tonde.

Lin turned to Shan and frowned. “I still have orders,” he said, as if to correct himself. “People can’t be allowed to do things to the government.”

“Duties,” Shan acknowledged with a small nod, still watching Anya.

The sound of heavy engines echoed up the narrow valley that led to the Yapchi road.

“There was something she did,” Lin said, “when we were coming today. There was one of those rock rabbits, a pika she called it. It ran away and stopped about forty feet away. Then she sat and sang a song. She said, sit, Aku Lin.” The colonel frowned again, as if displeased with his confessional tone. “She sang this song like I have never heard before. In Tibetan. I couldn’t understand. But the words weren’t important. It was like—I don’t know, like what it would be if an animal could sing. And that pika came right up and sat in her lap. She picked up my hand and put it on top of the pika. I felt it breathing, like those sparrows when I was a boy.” He cut his eyes at Shan. “A silly thing,” he added, in a new, gruff tone. “A thing for children.”

“A deity song,” Shan said. “Anya calls them deity songs.”

The machine sound was louder now. “A tank,” Lin said in a weary voice. “And two or three trucks. Coming this way.”

Shan looked at Lin. Was the colonel warning him, so he and Nyma could flee?

Anya straightened from where she was digging, and waved at them. Shan and Lin both waved back.

“You and I,” Lin said awkwardly, “we’re the same age I think.” He sighed. “I had a letter from my mother before she died. She said two generations had been lost, but that the next one would be ready, the next one had the chance to put it all behind them and find a new way.”

Shan stared at the man. They were not the words of an army colonel. He was saying that the turmoil brought by the party and politicians had ravaged men like Shan and himself, and their parents. But Anya was of the new generation.

“A good doctor could fix that leg. I promised to meet her at that resettlement camp in a week or two. I have some leave coming. I am going to take her to a good hospital.” Lin spoke in a rush, as if he had to get the words out quickly or they might not come at all. With a strange sensation Shan realized that there was no one else Lin could speak them to, that Shan had somehow become his confessor. “If she wants I will take her to a real school. There are private schools now. I could pay—” Lin spun about. Three figures stood behind them, barely ten feet away. Nyma with Winslow and Tenzin, his dung bag on his shoulder. Lin glared at Shan, as if Shan had tricked him.