Eliot Pattison - Beautiful Ghosts

Corbett flushed with color. “Right,” he said slowly. “The international art smuggler and the art theft investigator. How opposite can two people be?”

“I think,” a dry voice interjected from behind them. They turned to see Lokesh, helping Liya to her feet. “I think somewhere she must be very beautiful,” he said, as if they had not truly seen her yet.

Corbett stared at Lokesh so intensely he seemed to have forgotten the urgency of their flight. As the others began to move into the shadows Shan pulled him toward the path that led to the old stone tower and the valley beyond. But as they reached the entrance to the path, between two crumbling walls, Liya reappeared, walking backwards, then Yao and Dawa. The big Mongolian, Khan, was herding them back, raising one hand in a pushing gesture, the other hand casually holding an automatic rifle, a glint of cool amusement in his face as he motioned for them to sit with their backs to the foregate wall, facing the chasm forty feet away.

A moment later Lu appeared, Ko at his side. Shan was aware of movement out of the side of his eye and turned to see Punji, her pack lowered to the ground beside her, kneeling beside Dawa, wiping her grimy face with a red bandana.

“What a sight,” the British woman sighed. “You look like a family of moles.”

When she was satisfied that the girl’s face was clean she straightened, hands on her hips, and paced in front of them as Khan wiped his rifle with an oily cloth.

She looked at Dawa again. “Children shouldn’t be here. Or Americans,” she added with chagrin in her voice, glancing at Corbett. Khan pulled something out of his pocket and showed Lu, whose eyes lit with excitement. It was the small gold Buddha Ko had stolen from the temple. Lu produced his own trophy, a little statue covered in gemstones.

“Here’s the way it will be,” Punji explained. “We’re going to get on with our business. We have what we need here. We’ll need some lead time.” Lu tossed his little deity from hand to hand with a gloating expression, then wandered behind the wall. “We’re going to put you in one of the cave storerooms, tie you up. We’ll leave you some food and blankets. I’ll send someone to free you in a day or two.”

Shan heard a new voice behind the wall. The words were drowned out by the wind, but someone, a stranger, was talking urgently.

“Then my colleagues go north to retrieve the treasure and you go home. We can all laugh about the good jokes the old monks played on us.” She looked back at Corbett. “I want you to know something. A third of what I make goes to the relief fund. To the children.”

“Help us,” Corbett said. “Your uncle the major would.”

Ko stepped to one of the army packs and helped himself to a bag of raisins.

Punji smiled. “It’s because of him we’re here. Look at all he gave us.”

“What he gave to you,” Shan said to the British woman, “was Zhoka. It was Tibet. He was a soldier when he started, as you were in a sense, a soldier of fortune. But when he finished he was a monk.” Shan pulled the rolled-up peche leaf from his pocket and let Punji read it. Death is how deities are renewed. She puzzled over the words a moment, taking the leaf, turning it over, holding it one way then another as if to better catch the light.

Finally she sighed and the sad grin returned to her face. “He was a deep old thing, our major.”

When she handed the leaf back to Shan, he declined. “Keep it. It’s a piece of him, from your family.”

Punji seemed uncomfortable with the notion at first, running her fingers through her auburn hair, and seemed about to refuse, then slowly rolled up the old paper. “What was he trying to say?” she asked no one in particular. “Renewing deities.”

“You always have another chance,” Corbett said.

Punji gave one of her exaggerated sighs. “So predictable. You’re obsessed. Get some lives, all of you. Renew your own deities. Mine fits perfectly fine. Restoring art, that’s what I do, getting it to people who appreciate it. Letting the global market extend itself.”

Shan stepped closer to the wall, away from the others. The wind died at that moment and it seemed to Shan he was very near the unknown man speaking behind the wall. He caught brief sentences, without meaning. They were in English. “Of course we will do it,” the man said. “From here on it’s easy.”

“A few days at most,” Punji said. “Then we’ll be gone.” She looked at Dawa. “I’ll send some candy for you. I have candy somewhere in the packs.”

Lu appeared at the far end of the yard. But it could not have been Lu speaking, since McDowell had said he spoke no English. A knot began tying itself in Shan’s gut as Lu squatted by the big man with the rifle and spoke in a whisper. Khan frowned, seemed to argue, then sighed and for a moment seemed somehow melancholy. Lu straightened, patting the big man on the shoulder as if for encouragement.

The big Mongolian called Punji to his side, opened the pack at his feet and pointed inside. Lu picked up the rifle then nervously stepped away. As Punji bent over the pack Khan swung his arm in a wide arc over his head.

There was something in his hand, Shan saw, a large jagged rock. “No!” Shan shouted in alarm.

As Punji looked up Khan slammed the rock into the back of her skull with a vicious strength, once, twice, three times until there was a sickening crunch, and a crack of bone shattering. As she crumpled to the ground Corbett leapt up with a roar. Lu fired the gun into the ground in front of him, shouting, stepping between Corbett and the Englishwoman. Her assailant stepped back, his eyes wild, as she got up on her hands and knees, blood streaming down her neck. She pushed up, a trembling hand reaching behind her neck, a dull, vacant expression on her face. She stood with great difficulty, looking around the clearing, swaying, studying them absently, as if she no longer recognized them. The big man scooped her into his arms, lifting her like a child, one arm around her neck, one under her knees. As he did so Punji’s head sagged to one side and she looked, without focusing, at Shan. Her mouth opened, round and wide, and a wrenching sound came out, a hollow confused syllable that might have been the beginning of a word. Then she watched her hand, which seemed to be moving of its own accord toward the peche leaf in her pocket.

Lu shouted a warning at Shan, leveling the rifle, and Shan realized he had run forward. Shan halted, raising a hand out toward Punji. Khan paused, looking at Punji, then Shan, with sadness in his eyes. Lu spat a curse at him. Khan turned, reached the side of the cliff in three long strides, and dropped Punji into the void.

The sound that came from Dawa was like no scream Shan had ever heard. The quivering howl of torment seemed to be a living thing, shooting through them, shaking the old walls. It seemed the old gompa itself was speaking, all the ghosts calling upon the girl to express their horror. It roiled the air, ebbing and rising again, like a jagged rip in the atmosphere, holding them all in a trance for a moment, even Khan, who looked forlornly down into the abyss where he had dropped McDowell.

Suddenly Lu was staggering. Ko was on his back, beating him about the shoulders, pounding a fist into his skull. As Khan launched himself toward Ko, Corbett threw himself through the air, slamming into the man’s legs, knocking him off balance. Khan hit the ground heavily, the wind knocked out of him as Shan grabbed the rifle in Lu’s hands. Lu twisted the weapon, hitting Shan’s crown with the barrel, then Shan wrenched it from his grip. Ko kept beating Lu, who did not fight him but twisted and turned, backing against the wall. Suddenly Ko seemed to see the rifle in Shan’s hands and dropped off the man’s back. He stared at his father for a moment, then looked at Lu-who was darting away into the maze of rocks-and at his own hands, as if not understanding anything, perhaps as shocked by his own action, which would deny him refuge with the thieves, as by Punji’s sudden death.