Eliot Pattison - Beautiful Ghosts

Dolan’s eyes flashed with anger again. He threw the little tsa-tsa against a rock, shattering it. “Tell him I understand exactly what is there. There’s nothing like it in all the world, and it’s mine. It will be mine forever,” he said in a taunting voice. “And tell him, of all the people in the world, I know about power,” he added with a sneer.

“I am sorry,” Lokesh said with a sigh.

Dolan muttered under his breath and pushed the nearest man toward the rubble. It was Ko, who paused only for a quick, inquiring glance at Lokesh before pulling the first rock away. Had his son understood, Shan wondered, had he known that Lokesh had not been apologizing, but saying he was sorry for Dolan?

Jara joined Ko, followed by the other herders, wearing curious, expectant expressions as they studied the wealthy American. Only Gendun lingered, his eyes sad, settling to the ground in the shadow of a wall as he gazed upon the orange square in the rubble.

As Shan approached and squatted beside him Gendun began drawing in the soil again. It was another of the ancient symbols, Shan thought at first, but then he saw the block shapes and gaps like gates or arches between the blocks. He was sketching buildings, the buildings that had stood before the ruin, the way they had appeared from where Gendun now sat. Two long graceful buildings, walls canted slightly inward at the top in the traditional Tibetan fashion, stood over the east and west stairways to the underground temple. Between them was an unusual structure, one that probably dated to the days when gompas also served as fortresses, a tall tower, twice as high as the other buildings, that would have allowed those at the top to survey the surrounding lands from the center of the walled gompa, and from which sacred banners or giant thangka would have been suspended on festival days. A tower whose first purpose may have been to guard over the sacred treasure chamber which must have been directly below it.

Dolan watched with cool amusement as Lokesh wrote a prayer on a piece of paper and directed the Tibetans to stack the rocks they removed into a cairn over the prayer. The old Tibetan’s action seemed to energize the herders, who worked quietly to excavate a hole in the center of the orange square. Dolan did not seem to notice when Jara handed Gendun the pieces of tsa-tsa broken by the American to bury with the prayer.

They worked an hour, then two, exposing a hole in the center nearly five feet deep, building their cairn higher and higher. They exposed long fragments of wooden beams, then heavy slabs of stone Dolan declared to be the roof supports for the vault. Shan kept looking back toward the drawing Gendun had made in the earth.

Ming seemed to no longer share Dolan’s enthusiasm. He shot nervous glances toward Yao and Corbett, and leaned into Lu’s ear repeatedly, Lu always shaking his head as if disagreeing. Shan carried rocks with the others, and was standing in the rubble, waiting for Jara to hand him a rock to carry, when he saw that Gendun had disappeared. He visualized the sketch the old lama had made in the soil. The old tower must have been erected on a base of solid rock, and the treasure room would have been built beneath that base, far below the solid surface. But Dolan’s equipment had shown a chamber inside the rubble.

The American magnate seemed to have worked himself into a strange euphoria, driving his workers on with a glint in his eyes, encouraging them not with sharp words but with what sounded like bribes. “Twenty dollars to each of you if we finish with daylight left,” he announced after another half hour of excavating. An hour later he raised the payment to fifty dollars, never joining the work himself but seeming to work almost as hard, blowing his whistle, cajoling the Tibetans, telling them of the new shoes they could buy, the new hats, the new sheep, sometimes standing expectantly by the instruments again, sometimes consulting Ming, who seemed to watch his American partner with growing unease. Partner no more, Shan realized. Dolan had taken over, Dolan and the two men who worked for him had killed both of Ming’s allies, and Dolan had seemed to have dropped any pretense he might share the treasure with Ming.

When Shan saw Lokesh standing over Gendun’ s drawing, he lowered the rock he carried onto the cairn and joined him. “There must have been a chamber in the bottom of the tower,” Shan explained. “A storage room perhaps, or a passage to a stairway. He’s wasting his time.”

Lokesh nodded his agreement. “I have met Americans before but never one like this. I think he was never taught how to seek.” It was a rare condemnation from Lokesh, or perhaps not so much a condemnation as a sad reflection on the state of Dolan’s spirit. “He seeks so zealously yet there is no substance in what he seeks.”

With two hours of light left they struck an opening under the rubble, a small hole that led into black shadow below. Dolan climbed onto the rocks and probed it with a pole, confirming there was a floor, or something firm to stand on, six feet below. As half the crew moved more rocks, Dolan ordered the others to bring large metal cases like suitcases from under a canvas in the courtyard. They were carrying cases, special cases for shipping fragile, expensive objects. Dolan had decided the emperor’s treasure was at last within his reach.

Gendun was suddenly at Shan’s side. In his hands he held several neatly folded robes, and Shan realized he must have gone below to retrieve them from the living chambers on the third level of the temple. “Why would you-” he began to ask, but saw that the lama had settled onto a flat rock and was already deep in his beads, reciting a sad, weary mantra.

To his alarm he saw Lokesh was standing beside Dolan. “This is not the way,” Shan heard Lokesh say in a loud voice as he moved toward them. “You must find something of your deity first.”

Without warning Dolan turned and slapped Lokesh hard on the cheek. “You insult me, old man,” the American growled. “I am tired of all of you acting so damned superior. Keep it up and I’ll teach you who I am.”

Lokesh did not touch his cheek, did not seem to notice the blow. “Sit with us,” Lokesh said in a worried voice. “We can go to a quiet place and speak of things.”

Before Shan reached them Dolan had motioned Lu over, and the short Han began pulling Lokesh away. But now the American was looking at Lokesh not with anger, but with a passing curiosity.

Dolan insisted on going into the chamber first, dropping into it with a small lamp fixed to a band around his head, a rope tied to his waist. The American surveyed the group with a victorious gleam, casting a taunting smile at Corbett and Yao, who stood in the shadows. Shan watched uneasily as Ko stealthily moved beyond the Tibetans, edging closer to Dolan, studying Dolan with what seemed to be an intense fascination. Dolan disappeared into the hole and Ming began handing him equipment, two of the metal cases, a camera, more lights. They spoke, though Shan could not hear the words, and then Ming stood, making a show of removing a small radio from a pack on his belt, as if to remind everyone of his ability to summon soldiers in helicopters.

Suddenly there was a loud, terrified groan from somewhere, then an abject cry. As Ming bent over the hole the rope, coiled at his side, began sliding into the hole. There were sounds like sobbing, and as Ming lunged to grab the end of the rope his weight brought down the end of the chamber. The small mound of rubble shifted, rocks moved, dust rose, and from somewhere timbers creaked. As the dust cleared Ming was standing at the edge of a new, bigger hole, partially filled with rubble.

Everyone leapt forward, digging, pulling away the rocks and jagged pieces of timber that had been exposed by the latest collapse, Ming and Lu desperately calling out Dolan’s name. In twenty minutes they had enough cleared away for Khan to fit back inside the original opening. He followed the rope and returned a minute later, Dolan on his back.