Eliot Pattison - Bone Mountain

"How long has Jokar been back?" Shan asked Nyma.

"Back? We told you. He's been gone since the day you left."

"But I saw him. On the rocks above."

Nyma rushed outside, Shan close behind. Jokar was gone. Had Shan only imagined seeing the lama?

They stepped around the talus, studying the rocks closely. The old man could easily have fallen. In fact it seemed almost impossible to climb to where Shan had seen him.

But when they returned there was an air of excitement. The purbas had quieted. Lhandro and his father wore looks of confused awe. Lhandro's mother was on a pallet, and the medicine lama was bent over her.

"Suddenly he was just there," Lhandro said. "Standing beside my father in the meditation cell, as if he had just spirited there. No one saw him come in. He said my mother should lie down and asked if she was over her stiff knees. Her knees had been stiff, until we brought the Lamtso salt back."

Jokar moved to Lhandro's father, who sat nearby. Close to the butter lamps. In the brighter light Shan saw a discoloration on Jokar's neck, a large dark bruise that he had not noticed before. As if the lama had been beaten.

Jokar touched Lepka's pulse and the two men began speaking, in low tones at first, then in a more relaxed, louder fashion- of Rapjung and how the herb gatherers once came every autumn to Yapchi, how sometimes a lama and student would come for a month to stay and mix medicine.

"I remember a beautiful house there," Jokar said, "like an old wooden temple." His voice was like shifting sand. He kept holding Lepka's wrist as he spoke.

Lepka smiled back. "That house brought serenity to many people."

When the lama was finished with Lepka, he looked at him, and then his wife. "Sometimes," Jokar said quietly, "don't always use that staff of yours. Lean on your wife. She is a strong staff, too."

Nyma sat in the corner, watching Jokar with an expression of guilt and awe. She still wore her rongpa clothes. Shan had not seen her doing her rosary since the day the village burned.

The purbas lingered in the shadows of the opposite corner, watching uncertainly. "Are they scared of him?" Shan asked Somo, when she retreated toward the door.

"No. But I'm scared. They seem sure he is the one now, they're saying more purbas should come and guard him."

"The one?"

"The monk who has come to fill the chair of Siddhi."

Shan stared at Somo in disbelief and fear. The frail old medicine lama would never propose aggression against the Chinese. But he might know of the chair of Siddhi and want to go there to speak with the people about the Compassionate Buddha. To the purbas it might make little difference, what Jokar said, as long as he took the seat. A prophesy fulfilled would have much power among the people of the mountains, and the legend could be made to serve the purbas' goals. The legend said the lama who sat in the chair was the leader of revolution. Suddenly one of the young Tibetans from Larkin's team rushed forward and knelt beside Jokar.

"Rinpoche," the youth blurted out, "will you come, will you do this thing for all of us?"

Jokar slowly turned, cocking his head at the man.

"Will you take the chair of Siddhi?" When Jokar replied with only a stare the purba repeated the question in a shaking, excited voice.

The lama offered a small smile and nodded. The purba's eyes flared, and he looked back triumphantly at Somo. He leapt up, fastened a small pack to his back, and ran out the door.

When Jokar stood again he walked purposefully to Winslow, who sat only a few feet from Shan, and sat down. The American grinned, then shot an awkward glance at Shan, as if asking what to do. The lama's hand rose and settled over the crown of Winslow's head, not touching it. The hand slowly drifted along his head, neck, and body, an inch off the American's skin. When he finished the lama sighed, and lifted Winslow's wrist. "The mountains have a hard time with you," Jokar said softly.

Winslow cocked his head at the lama, as if trying to understand. "I'm doing better," he said, grinning awkwardly, as if he had decided the lama was referring to his altitude sickness.

"You have come far for this," the old man said. His deep, moist eyes surveyed Winslow again, settling on the crown of his head. "There is that one black thing. You must get rid of that black thing." He paused again and gazed into the American's eyes. He seemed about to speak again, but sighed. It was his turn to cock his head, as if to better understand something he saw in the American. "You've come far," he said again, and slowly rose.

Winslow stared at the floor. He seemed shaken, somehow. He swallowed hard, and looked up at Melissa Larkin, who returned his solemn stare. He grinned awkwardly. "Feels like far," Winslow quipped, then rose and stepped outside.

Five minutes later Shan found the American sitting by the gnarled juniper tree. "You found her," he said uncertainly. "Now you can go back."

"There's a path I'm on," the American said softly, with an odd curiosity in his voice, the curiosity of one who was confused by one's own actions, or emotions. They stared at the tree together. A small brown bird lighted on a nearby branch and watched them. "I'm meant to be on it. It's just that sometimes it's hard to see it."

There was another mystery Shan had not had time to consider, the mystery of who Winslow was, or who he was becoming. "You came to find Miss Larkin's body," Shan reminded him. "You found her alive. You saved her life. Go. Everything that's left-" he struggled for words. "From here, everything becomes very dangerous."

"Zhu's still out there. What if I left and something happened to her?"

"The purbas protect her. They understand the danger now, thanks to you."

Winslow sighed, and rose to his knees, leaning closer to the bird. "In my heart, I have stopped working for the government," he confessed to the little creature, which seemed to listen carefully. Shan detected a new serenity in the American's voice. "Giving up my passport was like a great weight being lifted from me, somehow. It was part of that path, it was meant to be." He turned to Shan. "And now, what Jokar said. He said I had come far for this. I don't think he meant far like in far from America. But what did he mean, the mountains have a hard time with me?"

"I don't know," Shan said, feeling an unexpected sadness. "Something between the mountain deities and you."

"It's just that I'm not finished in Tibet," Winslow said, still to the bird, which stared directly into the American's eyes.

He turned abruptly and looked at Shan. "I had a dream last night. I was floating over the mountains, more peaceful than I have ever felt. I was holding Jokar's hand, and we were floating over the mountains while he laughed and pointed out his special places. We flew with geese over a deep blue lake," Winslow said in a hollow voice. "At the end I looked at him and I said, Rinpoche, every lama needs a cowboy, and he just nodded solemnly." The American looked back at the bird, which still showed great interest in his words.

"It was just a dream," Shan suggested. If Lokesh had heard about such a dream, he would have asked Winslow if he was sure he had been asleep. Lokesh might have said it wasn't a dream, but an awareness event.

"I think it means I'm supposed to help Melissa and the Tibetans. Help Lokesh and Tenzin."

"I thought," Shan sighed, "that you were supposed to be back in Beijing."

"And tell the bureaucrats Larkin's not dead, but don't worry she soon will be? They probably have a form for it. Report of Future Murder." Winslow looked into his hands. "I know you're not going to give up on Lokesh."

"No," Shan said softly. "Leaving him is not what I do."

Suddenly, from near the rock wall, Nyma called for them in a tone of distress.