Eliot Pattison - Bone Mountain

As Shan sat near the fire, trying to join in the spirit of the circle, his concern for the American increased. It was too dangerous for him to come to the encampment, even with purbas protecting him. He would be an illegal now, without the protection of his passport, without any identity as far as the authorities would be concerned. Like Shan, Winslow didn't exist now, and if captured he might be made to disappear.

In the dim light on the far side of the fire Shan became aware of another figure, seated on the back of a horse cart, a dour Tibetan man, Shan's age, flanked by two of the purbas he had seen on the ridge. Shan rose and edged around the ring. But when he got close to the cart the nearest purba stepped in front of him. The man on the cart stared at Shan with hooded eyes, showing no greeting, no emotion of any kind. In the firelight Shan could see two deep gutters of scar tissue along the man's cheek, and the flame in his eyes. He saw much that he recognized in those eyes. They were prisoner's eyes, filled with a weary, sad intelligence, but they were also extraordinarily fierce eyes, lit with fury and righteousness alike. Shan had seen the same eyes on thangkas of wrathful protector demons.

Shan took another step forward and the purba's hand closed around his arm like a cold vise, and pressed it against something near his chest. A pistol butt, in a shoulder holster. Shan froze, then stepped back out of the purba's grip, studying the lines of scar tissue on the man's cheeks. It was the one they called the Tiger, he somehow knew, the legendary purba leader with the stripes on his face. The two most wanted men in all Tibet were at Khodrak's gompa.

Shan retreated to the far side of the circle. He wandered out onto the plain, into the comfort of the night, trying to fight the new fear that the Tiger's presence had ignited. An owl called. The mountains on the horizon glistened in the moonlight. The appearance of the purba leader unsettled Shan as much as if knobs had risen out of the fire. The Tiger was not there to help Shan. The Tiger was famed as a man of action. It was said that his mother had been Moslem. Moslems believed in retribution. The Tiger was so hunted, so prominently marked for destruction he could easily have an army of knobs on his trail at that moment. The words Anya had spoken their first night on Yapchi mountain came back to him. So many have died, the oracle had said, so many still to die.

Shan found himself sitting, staring at the sky, beseeching the stars. If only he could just take Lokesh and go. He had no more hope to give the Tibetans, he had no way of seeing through the mysteries that shrouded the gompa and Yapchi Valley. All he could see was the danger.

Time passed, perhaps an hour. Something moved in the darkness, ahead of him. A man, sitting on a rock a hundred feet away, was holding something that glinted in the moonlight, looking not at Shan but out onto the plain.

"The lamas have no patience for me," a deep voice suddenly said behind him. "They say I shouldn't expect to achieve so much in one lifetime." It was an extraordinary voice, hoarse and powerful, like a growl but not exactly. How had Lhandro described it? Like someone roaring in a whisper, because the knobs had broken his voicebox.

As Shan turned toward the man with the ravaged face he saw a second guard sitting on a rock, fifty feet away.

"I told them when I was young I had teachers from the tantric schools who taught that with the right practice you could achieve Buddhahood in one lifetime."

Strangely, Shan realized, he had never heard another name for the Tiger. He shifted uneasily, wondering how many more men with guns lurked in the shadows. And how often the Tiger spoke with Chinese in the night.

"I tell them compared with that, what I seek seems so little." The man sat beside Shan and watched the sky a moment. "When you're always on the run, always moving after sunset, the night sky becomes your home," he said, and for a moment sounded very tired. "You have a man who wrote a letter. Colonel Lin is no friend of Tibet. He has been written, more than once."

Written. The Tiger meant written in the Lotus Book, the purbas' compendium of atrocities against Tibetans.

"I would like to spend time with that Colonel," the purba leader said in a businesslike tone. "Take him somewhere. Valuable things could be learned."

Shan felt his belly clench. "Lin is injured," he said weakly. "Why?" he asked, looking into the man's ravaged face. "Why would you bother to speak to me about this? The purbas know where Lin is."

The man said nothing. Something moved in the distance, and one of the purbas with the guns leapt up. After a moment Shan heard the clatter of small hooves, those of a wild goat or gazelle, and the man returned to his post. Shan studied the Tiger. He seemed like another rock in the night, a lonely statue whose face was slowly being etched away by the wind. Shan realized that the Tiger might have answers to many of the questions that had been plaguing him.

"Why are there no knobs here?" he asked suddenly. "Why didn't the knobs take the abbot of Sangchi?"

The Tiger sighed. "The ones who have him are knobs and not knobs. Things are adrift in this district. Even those knob doctors aren't sure who to report to. We intercepted a request they sent to Lhasa, asking for instructions. They want to go up onto the Plain of Flowers to find the medicine lama. But Tuan and that abbot Khodrak want them here."

"But if monks become the political enforcers," Shan said. "What can the people do to…" his voice trailed off.

"Right," the Tiger said grimly.

"Somo said there are other knobs working for Tuan somewhere else. Five others."

"We can't find them. No one knows where they are. We have tightened security everywhere. No new faces are permitted at any of our meetings now. We have word out all over the district. But those five are not to be found. Everyone is wary, very nervous. It is getting more and more dangerous."

They sat in silence. Crickets sounded somewhere.

"I went to that hermitage where you started but you had already gone," the Tiger said suddenly. "The dropka who were there told us about an old lama taking away the body of Drakte. We followed, and stayed at the durtro until the vultures were done, trying to understand what had happened to him. We talked into the night, and when we awoke your lama was gone, into the mountains."

Had he been wrong about the Tiger? Was he there about Drakte, about finding revenge for Drakte? "I know Drakte was at Amdo town that night," Shan said. "Getting one of the Lotus Books. But why there, why couldn't someone have met him away from the dangers of a town?"

"That damned Serenity Campaign. The howlers are keeping scores for economic success. We laughed about it at first. But this gompa, this Khodrak, decided he had to have the best score in Tibet. And he did." The Tiger gazed at a particularly bright star.

"But it has to be lies," Shan said.

"Exactly. Drakte found out. He had other duties, but he was from this region originally, and he would not allow Khodrak to get away with the lies. It became a personal quest of his, even though I opposed it. When he finished his work for us in the south he roamed through this district to collect the true data. When he found out that a boyhood friend was Tuan's assistant he said it was destined, that he was meant to give it to that Chao. And Chao readily agreed, even said he would trade Drakte something just as good."

"But they were attacked."

"It must have been a trap. To a man like Tuan, Chao would have been a traitor. Chao died, and Drakte was fatally wounded. The Lotus Book Drakte carried was lost."

"How did Chao die, exactly?"

"A stab in the back, wide, like a butcher's knife. They were at a garage. It could have been an ax. Chao died immediately. If Drakte had come to us we probably could have saved him. But he went to you instead."