Eliot Pattison - Water Touching Stone

The American woman kept stumbling in the soft sand, calling her son's name even as she fell. Deacon stood a moment staring at Shan, then at the short, slender figure with the two herders, his face growing dim, as if a veil were descending over it. Then he made a gasping sound as though he were back in the suffocating karez and stepped forward, calling his wife in a voice no one could hear at first, then louder, until as she stumbled to her knees again he caught up with her.

There was no need to explain, Shan saw, for Jacob Deacon understood. The American had been glimpsing another of the nightmares that had shadowed Shan since the nadam. Two mischevious boys had fooled their foster parents, their shadow clan guardians, because one had wanted to move to the lower pastures to be with the horses, while the other had been trying to reach the high Kunlun, the land of the lama field. Khitai had already played the same innocent game by trading places with Suwan at the Red Stone camp. Only for a few days, Khitai and Micah would have said, for everyone would meet at Stone Lake on the full moon. Malik had been certain Khitai died at the lama field but Malik had seen only a battered boy with dark hair already in his shroud, in possession of Khitai's belongings, at the place he expected Khitai to be.

"Micah!" the American woman called again, when her husband pulled her up from the sand. "Our boy!" she cried to her husband, as if Deacon did not understand. But Deacon held her from the back, his arms locked around her, as she faced the riders, keeping her there as Shan and Marco passed by, their pace slower and slower as they approached. The two herders, holding the horses, looked at the Americans with wild, confused expressions.

When they reached the horses Lokesh was sitting on the sand with a slim Tibetan boy, chanting a mantra with him, pointing out the possessions that he had recovered for him at the lama field. Tears ran down the old Tibetan's cheeks.

Gendun stood, his eyes wide and sad, looking from Shan to Khitai and back to the Americans. "Thank you, friend Shan," he said, his voice cracking. "For raising our Yakde Lama from the dead."

No one discussed staying at Stone Lake. But stay they did, for hours, Shan staring in silence at the shallow depression that marked the tomb, Deacon and his wife alone with their grief, Marco introducing the boy lama to Sophie and offering him a ride. Fat Mao came to find Marco and left after speaking with Jowa, taking the Americans to the grave at the lama field. By midday people began to appear, Kazakhs and Uighurs mostly, some on horses, some walking down the road from the highway. They gathered around the depression in the sand with puzzled expressions. Shan heard someone point out the holy man in the robe, and many nodded, as if Gendun's presence explained everything. They raised a small cairn at the site of the collapsed cistern, using rubble from the oil camp buildings and stones from the old ruins. Shan and Jowa removed the prayer flags from the building frame where Kaju had erected them and fastened them to the cairn.

The boy lama seemed to avoid Shan at first, then finally came and sat beside him as he contemplated the bowl of sand that had become Kaju's grave. The boy appeared about to speak, and Shan leaned forward as if to say something himself, but neither of their tongues found words. They sat silently, for an hour, then the boy moved in front of Shan and slowly lifted Shan's hand. He spread Shan's fingers to make an open palm, and then placed the palm over his heart.

When the boy raised his hand Shan reached inside his shirt and pulled out his gau. "I met one of the old ones at Sand Mountain," he said to the boy as he opened the gau. "Before he returned to the sand he gave me this," Shan explained as he pulled out the feather. He stared at it, cupped in his hand. "I gave him a new one, to take back." Shan looked up to see the boy lama staring reverently at the feather, and he extended his hand toward the boy. "I want you to take it now."

The boy did not take the feather at first, but pulled his own gau from his neck, opening the finely worked silver filigree lid to reveal a similar filigree worked in jade. He lifted the top of the Jade Basket and Shan dropped the feather into it.

The Yakde stared at the feather, his eyes filled with emotion. "Micah loved owls," he said softly. "When we were together we would stay up and listen for owls. He had learned from his shadow clan how to call to them. One night he grew very still and said there was one old owl calling for him now, that it felt like the owl was trying to call him somewhere." The boy shook his head slowly, then gently lifted the box close to his face to study the feather. "It will become one of the treasures," he said.

He meant, Shan realized after a moment, that it would become a permanent part of the Yakde Lama's chain of existence, one of the treasures that would become an indicator for future incarnations of the Yakde.

By late afternoon the Maos returned with two trucks, and spoke again in hushed tones to Jowa. They helped Shan and the Tibetans into a truck, then loaded Sophie into the other. Shan jumped out at the last minute and climbed in with Sophie and Marco. They looked at each other without speaking, stroking Sophie as the truck lurched down the road.

"Where will you leave her?" Shan asked. "When you go across the ocean."

Marco's face still had no cheer but it seemed to have found a certain peacefulness. "Leave her?" The Eluosi grunted. "Sophie never leaves me. She goes, she always goes."

"To Alaska? They don't have camels in Alaska."

"They will now," Marco declared in a loud voice. "We'll take her on a big ship, one where we can walk with her on the deck. You and me."

It was such an impossible thing that Shan wanted to laugh. But it was an impossibly wonderful thing. He was young enough to start a new life. Jakli had given him the medallion because she too wanted him to go. Tibet, the lamas always told him, was the starting point for his new incarnation, but no one could know where it would lead. He had missed the trip to Nepal and the new life in England, but now another path was unfolding.

They were close to Yoktian, Shan saw, and suddenly they were passing a familiar set of hills on the edge of the town. At the top of a hill was a boxy black car. Shan pounded on the window for the truck to stop, then jogged up the hill, past the empty Red Flag.

He spotted her in the middle of the cemetery, slowly sweeping a grave with a ragged broom, dust on her clothes. She could have been a groundskeeper or a mourner.

Xu showed no surprise at seeing him and continued sweeping around the grave before speaking. "Glory Camp is dead," she said, huddling over the broom. "Can't use it after the accident, not for weeks at least, probably not until spring." All the prisoners sentenced to six months or more were being transferred to other facilities, she explained, all the others released.

"And those taken by Bao?" Shan asked.

Those too, the prosecutor confirmed without looking up, then she walked to a bag by a grave ten feet away. She pulled out a videotape and tossed it toward Shan's feet.

"I told Loshi to get it, to make them get it back for her. I told her she was fired if she didn't get it, because she had tampered with an official file, that she'd never have a chance for a transfer back east. I was going to bury it." She kicked it closer to him, then, as if impatient with his indecision over touching it, smashed it with her foot. An end of the loose tape broke free of the cassette and the wind grabbed it, unwinding it with such force that it broke when it reached the end. The tape slithered across the graves like a snake, then blew out into the desert.

"They've all been reported missing by their offices," Xu said stiffly. "Someone said they saw Bao pick up Ko and the general at the Brigade compound, in one of the boot squad trucks, but no one saw them afterward. This afternoon the knobs from Kashgar took a look at the Brigade offices. Found a storeroom of contraband. Smuggled goods. Someone said maybe they caused the accident at Glory Camp, to cover up evidence." Nikki's goods, Shan thought. The goods they had stolen from Nikki when they seized his caravan would condemn them.