Eliot Pattison - Mandarin Gate

“Sometimes we would sneak away and shoot at marmots with his slingshot. That’s what happened the day his father told him to drive the small truck to meet with someone, to deliver a message. He picked me up on the other side of the hill and we raced over the road, bouncing in the ruts, laughing. He liked to pretend he was running away from the police, like in some movie. We got to his meeting place early and walked up the ridge to shoot at marmots. We were stalking a big one through some rocks when over the rise we saw two men on the dirt road below. One was a knob and the other was a monk with a bicycle.

“I backed away, and told him to hide but he said it was no problem, that the monk was the one he was doing business with and he stood up and waved at the monk.”

Shan shut his eyes a moment. “Genghis was suddenly sick. You did that.”

“There’s a little red root that grows up on the ridges. I put some in his tea. He’s fine by now.”

“But why wait all this time?” Meng asked.

“Because he didn’t know that the boy was murdered,” Shan said heavily. “Not until he eavesdropped on Lung Tso and me.”

“A monk did the killing you said. I saw that monk with the bicycle. I went back there,” Jigten explained. “I went back to see if I could find something more about that monk and the knob.” Jigten pointed at Dakpo. “And I saw him there, on the bicycle again.”

Dakpo murmured something, holding his ribs.

Shan stepped closer. “I’m sorry?”

“There’s a dozen.” The monk’s mouth twisted in pain as he spoke. “The gompa has a dozen bicycles. Any monk can take one when he needs it. I borrowed one to go back along that trail where the Lung boy died.”

“To do what?”

Dakpo gazed at Jigten. “To find something more about that monk and the knob,” he said, repeating the dropka’s words.

“It was you I saw that day at the convent,” Shan said.

The young monk nodded. “I know Chenmo.”

Shan considered his words. “You mean she told you a monk was a killer, because the American had told her.”

Dakpo grabbed the gau around his neck and nodded again. “I found a gun,” he whispered, glancing fearfully at Meng. Shan looked up at her and she nodded and left the building. “Tell me about it,” he said.

It had been hidden inside a prayer wheel on a pilgrim path that was seldom used, the monk explained. But Jamyang had convinced him that all such paths needed clearing, and Dakpo went up the slope to do so whenever he could get away. “The wheel made a terrible clatter when I finally got it moving. I pushed on it, and the top came off. I didn’t want to touch it.”

“What happened to it?”

“I didn’t do anything that day, nothing until Chenmo told me what the American said about the killer. Then I went up in the night and threw it into a crevasse.”

“But why go to Chamdo so abruptly?” Shan asked.

“I clean out files all the time in the office at the monastery, because of the auditors who come. I found a message from weeks ago with nothing but a date on it, the date of the full moon next week. It had been sent electronically to an address that said CTPI, with numbers after those letters like a code. The Bureau of Religious Affairs has been trying to train us to use computers better. I was able to investigate on the computer and found the message had been sent to the Institute.” There was fear in the monk’s voice now. “I had never heard of it. I had to find out what it meant, why it was sent.”

In the silence that followed more trucks went by, groaning with full loads. “Tell me this, Dakpo,” Shan asked, “who at Chegar does business with the Jade Crows? Who works with the purbas?”

Dakpo would not look at Shan. He gripped his gau tighter. “There are three of us,” he said in a hollow voice.

“Who other than you? The purbas knew of the foreigners. Did they tell you about them?”

“There are three of us,” Dakpo repeated, and would say no more.

* * *

It was nearly midnight before he lowered himself onto a pile of straw opposite Dakpo. Much later he woke to the sound of straining engines. He did not have to rise to know from the repetitive movement of headlights across the back wall that another convoy was passing by. Beside him on the straw was Meng, asleep, nestled against his body.

He turned and through the open door could see the trucks, at least twenty, climbing up the mountain pass. It was another prisoner convoy, curling around the mountain like a serpent. The demon that was eating Tibet.

Meng rolled over, resting her hand on his chest. She had put her tunic on against the chill air and the red enamel star on its collar caught the moonlight. The demon he slept with.

* * *

The moon had risen when he stirred again, then abruptly sat up. Jigten sat on the stool staring at Dakpo, asleep on the straw.

The shepherd felt Shan’s gaze. “I will take him to Lung Tso. Lung will make him tell us about the killer.”

“I don’t think he knows. There are three, he said. It’s why he went to Chamdo, to try to discover why one of the others would be communicating with the Institute.”

“Three, but not him. That leaves two. He can tell us and Lung will get the truth from them.”

“With bamboo splints and barbed wire batons? No. That’s your anger speaking. You would not torture an innocent monk.”

“If I told Lung, he would. One of them killed his nephew and his brother.”

“One of them didn’t.”

Jigten’s anger had not faded. It was just directed at Shan now. “I told you,” he growled in a low voice. “This is Chinese Tibet. One Tibetan commits a crime and ten get punished.”

“No,” Shan said. “That is not my Tibet. It not Dakpo’s Tibet. It is not the Tibet of your mother, or of your clan.”

Jigten hung his head. “My mother would say one of those hailstorms will come again from the mountain and take the killer. Is that what you mean?”

“Something like that.”

The shepherd studied Shan in silence, then stepped to Dakpo, pulled up the monk’s blanket and left.

There was movement at his side. Meng was also studying him. “You amaze me, Shan. All you have been through and still so innocent. You told me yourself this case will never go to trial. Yet you think somehow justice will be done. There is only one way it gets done in this case.”

“I’m not sure what you are suggesting.”

“I’m saying there are cases where the only justice is a quick bullet.”

Shan spun about to face her. “No! Never! Don’t you understand? It would be against everything the old Tibetans believe.” Lokesh’s admonishment had shaken him, had never been far from his consciousness since they had spoken on the mountainside. “If I killed someone or arranged someone’s death there would be a gap between them and me I could never bridge. Lokesh wouldn’t live with me. I would never again have the confidence of the lamas. If I couldn’t live with them I don’t know if I could live with myself. You have to promise me. No bullets. No killing. I will never be involved in another killing, no matter how deserved it might be.”

Meng leaned over and traced a finger along his cheek. “You’re a complex man, Shan. If you corner the killer he will try to kill you.”

“Promise me, Xiao Meng.”

She smiled sleepily. “What did you call me?”

He blushed. The affectionate term of address had left his lips unbidden. He had not spoken it to a woman in decades. “Promise me.”

She was still smiling. “Of course. I promise. No bullet.”

“Never a bullet.”

“Never a bullet,” she confirmed, then nestled closer to him.

* * *

He found her at dawn, studying the road map on the hood of her car. Her cell phone was in her hand. “I called for the convoy schedule,” she explained with a worried expression. “There’s a steady flow all day.” She gazed at the truck. “If a security detail took an interest in the truck there would be no way to explain the injured monk.” She pointed to the map. “There’s a back road. It will come out on the highway just north of Lhadrung. No military bases. No police stations. Just two little villages. But the old man doesn’t know if the bridge at the second town is strong enough for the truck.”