Eliot Pattison - Bone Mountain

In the truck they had met in the mountains, Shan had listened to a strange debate among Lhandro and the purbas. What did they need most of all to bring the local people to the festival, Somo had asked the rongpa. Yaks, the Yapchi headman had said, and archery. There could be no festival without yaks and arrows. To his surprise, the yaks had been easier to assemble than the archers, for archery had been another of the traditions suppressed by the government. As Shan had watched on the second day from the hidden post the purbas had established on the ridge above Norbu, a small herd of yaks had arrived, some already festooned with colorful ribbons and strands of yarn. The archery range, outlined with rocks aligned toward a series of hardened mud targets, had waited until dropka from the deepest part of the ranges had arrived, the dropka who lived farther from the reach of the government.

He started from his dreamlike state as someone touched his arm, and opened his eyes into Anya's smiling face. She had clasped her hand around his own, and he silently let her pull him to his feet, then toward the makeshift pasture.

"Nearly a hundred!" she said excitedly.

Yaks. She meant nearly a hundred yaks, Shan saw as they stepped among the creatures. As he studied the joyful faces of the other Tibetans who gazed upon the animals, he realized that in the impoverished district such an accumulation was rare, representing a significant portion of the inhabitants' collective wealth.

Anya led him into the center of the herd, patting nearly every animal they passed. Sharing a handful of dried cheese with him, she carefully explained the traditional names for the many color patterns. She pointed to a black creature with white spots. "Yak thabo," Anya explained with a dreamy expression, pausing to rub the yak's ears. "Yak dongba," she said, gesturing toward one with a white star on its forehead. A kawa had a white head, a tsen yak was golden, and one with asymetrical horns was called ralden. Anya finally reached a large, purely black animal which greeted them with a low rumbling in its throat.

"I saw Gyalo arrive last night," she whispered. "He put on herder's clothes." Anya began tying braids in Jampa's hair, showing Shan how to fold and twist the hair, as she explained that he was the rarest of all, a lha yak, a perfect yak in every sense, protected by the deities and never to be used to carry an impure burden.

Suddenly he realized that Anya was staring past his shoulder with fear in her eyes. He turned to see that she watched the gate of the gompa, nearly two hundred yards away.

"It's time," she announced, and falling silent once more they walked back to the purba's truck. As they reached the shadows at the vehicle's side Nyma appeared and nodded toward the ridge above the gompa. A figure was running at the crest of the ridge, wearing the green uniform of a soldier. Shan watched as the figure ran halfway down the slope, then he climbed into the shadows of the covered cargo bay to sit beside Nyma, who picked up his battered pair of binoculars. The purbas had positioned the truck so the bay faced the front gate and looked into the compound beyond, toward the first of the two-story structures inside, the administrative offices where Shan and Nyma had encountered the Democratic Management Committee of the gompa.

Nyma studied the compound then handed him the glasses. He could see the soldier's face plainly in the lenses as the figure approached the gate. The rongpa and dropka reflexively hurried away from the figure, as they always did from the People's Liberation Army. Only those in the purba truck knew it was not a soldier, but even with his binoculars he could not tell it was Somo. Her hair was tightly tucked under an oversized green wool cap, the kind used under helmets by the mountain troops. Her uniform was complete but soiled, her tunic slightly torn at one shoulder. A leather dispatch case dangled from her other shoulder. The image was of a seasoned soldier who had been campaigning in the high ranges.

The stern white-shirted Han men who had patrolled the festival camp had done so with disinterested, almost careless expressions. The first day a junior official, not Tuan, had strutted among the Tibetans with a suspicious air, as if he were passing judgment on the assembly. When he had shouted orders for several of the dropka to open their gaus for him the dropka had hesitated. But then the purbas had begun playing East Is Red, one of Beijing's favorite anthems, on a portable tape machine and several children appeared waving minature flags of the People's Republic, supplied by the purbas themselves. The howler offered an icy smile of approval, then waved the dropka away before withdrawing with a smug expression. His casual air had worried Shan. Important prisoners should have made the guards more wary.

But still, a single sentry in a white shirt had been posted at the gates at all times since Shan had begun watching from the rocks above two days before. He took encouragement from the presence of the guard, as he did from the news that the dining hall was closed, but still there was no proof that Lokesh and Tenzin were inside the gompa walls. Somo now ran to the nearest guard, spoke in a low tone as she handed him Lin's letter, then darted away as though there was a crisis in the mountains. Everything went as scripted. She would not linger, for fear of too many questions. She would speak in a low voice, in hope of being mistaken for a man, and she would not look at the guard's face, to make it less likely she could be identified later. The guard stared in confusion after the running soldier a moment, then ran inside the administration building with the letter. Shan leaned forward with his binoculars. No one immediately appeared at the door but there was a movement at the window of the second floor office Shan had seen on his first visit. Less than a minute later, with a flush of excitement he watched five figures emerge and stride hurriedly to the gate: Director Tuan and Chairman Khodrak with the original guard and two more of Tuan's soldiers. As they reached the gate the guard pointed at Somo's receding figure, now far up the ridge. If they followed, the purbas were ready. By the time the guards arrived at the top of the ridge they would see four figures in army tunics, prompted by hidden purbas with signal flags, moving over the crest of the next ridge, hopelessly out of reach.

Tuan looked as though he was about to order some of his men after Somo, but he looked out over the Tibetan encampment and seemed to reconsider. Instead he spoke to one of the guards and the man shot away, toward the structure behind the administrative building.

Nyma shot Shan a grin. "Lha gyal lo," she whispered. Perhaps it was as much evidence as they could hope for.

Yet still the Tibetans in the encampment expressed reluctance to go inside the gompa. If they were to proceed with their plan they needed help from the rongpa and dropka, help in understanding who might be inside, help in avoiding too much of the howlers' scrutiny. But it was a place of monks, a sacred place, despite the Chinese flags that flew between the buildings, and Lhandro cast discouraging looks toward Shan as the leaders of the gathered clans met with the purbas.

A new set of visitors began moving around the camp, two photographers with several monks, led by Padme, who pressed bits of hard candy into the hands of all the children. Shan followed at a distance, watching as the group paused repeatedly to take photographs: Monks with smiling children on their laps. Monks helping to decorate the yaks. Padme gave new nylon jackets to several adolescents and distributed bottles of orange drink, directing the photographers to shoot pictures of all the joyful faces against the brilliant blue sky, then again with the gompa in the background. Padme found tools and had the monks pose with hammers, pretending to repair the rundown buildings outside the gate.