Eliot Pattison - Bone Mountain

Shan studied the old Han, who seemed to have recognized something in Khodrak that bore closer inspection. What was the professor doing? Lepka had said he was a good man. In another lifetime he might have been a Chinese monk, trying in his own gentle way to bridge the gaps between peoples.

Although out of earshot, Ma seemed to be speaking affably with the chairman of Norbu gompa. But his eyes roamed over Khodrak, studying his elegant robe, his finely worked leather sandals, the pearl rosary that hung from his belt. After a moment he gestured toward the mendicant's staff, and Khodrak hesitantly extended it toward him. The professor ran his fingers along the fine scrolling of the metal head then, strangely, the two men seemed to struggle for possession of the staff until Khodrak jerked it from Ma's grip and peevishly stepped away, the professor watching his back with an oddly disappointed expression. One of the howler guards rushed to Khodrak's side and leaned into his ear. The chairman looked toward the dig, and his eyes suddenly glowed. They had found Jokar.

The music faded, and Jenkins appeared by the microphone on the platform as though to speak, but his eyes were on the odd drama unfolding by the dig. The crowd seemed to follow his gaze, and gradually grew silent.

Suddenly Ma hurried past Khodrak and stepped in front of Jokar as though to defend him. Another figure materialized beside Ma. Lepka had joined him, as if Jokar, Ma, and he, the three oldest men present, suddenly felt an obligation to resist the chairman of Norbu. Khodrak frowned, then glanced pointedly at Colonel Lin, who stood twenty feet away, as though to will the officer to intervene. Lin reacted by taking a single step toward the professor, so Khodrak stood alone, facing the old men in momentary confusion. He seemed about to gesture toward his white-shirted troops when the professor swept his arm around the site of the dig.

"Tibetans did a terrible thing here a hundred years ago," Ma said loudly.

"Not Tibetans," Lin shot back irritably, and though he seemed about to say more, the words choked in his throat as a look of surprised disbelief crossed his face. He looked at Shan as though for help. Again Khodrak pressed forward. He seemed unable to contain his anger, and his greed, even in front of those who had come to fete him. Or perhaps not, Shan thought. Perhaps Khodrak had decided he had already been anointed by the government, that everything for him had become part of a performance for the dignitaries, a demonstration of new powers.

"This old Tibetan is a criminal!" the chairman of Norbu gompa shouted to Lin, stabbing an accusing finger toward Jokar, then he repeated the words in the direction of the officials seated on the platform.

Shan stepped in front of Jokar, beside Lepka and Ma. Khodrak answered the movement with a sneer. "A master criminal of the Dalai Cult," Khodrak continued in his loud, public-address voice as he pointed at Jokar, "surrounded by his criminal henchmen! Fomenting regression!" He shot an impatient glance at Lin and his troops, looked back at the officials, then straightened and smoothed his robe as he turned in the direction of the platform, his staff at his side.

"Great things will be said about this day," he boomed, "about how the new China routed out the last of the bad elements in this region with the forces of economic development and prosperity!" The chairman of Norbu had apparently rehearsed a speech, and had decided now was the time to give it. He had not counted on Jokar wandering freely, and he had to be sure the world knew Jokar was his. For Khodrak had clearly decided that the day should not be about the oil well, but about his personal victories.

"It is a day of reckoning for this valley, for this region, a day of history for the Bureau of Religious Affairs and Norbu." He pointed to the long single file of figures being escorted at gunpoint down the valley, then to Jokar. "Today we wipe out the criminal elements who have kept this district in the feudal age. Today we start a new life! A new age! They will hear about this in Beijing!" He cast a yearning eye toward the microphone that had been installed on the platform, and one of the white-shirted men leapt to the platform, pulling the microphone from its stand and handing it down to Khodrak, who pointed at the medicine lama again.

Jokar seemed not to notice. He was staring at the top of Yapchi Mountain now, as if he saw something there not visible to anyone else, staring toward the snowcapped peaks with a weary, serene smile.

"A leader of one of the most feudalistic institutions in all of Tibet, one of the most dangerous instruments of repression!" Khodrak's voice boomed across the valley now, and the chairman raised his ever-present mendicant staff in the air as though to punctuate his point. "A conspirator with the Dalai criminal himself! An agent sent from India to subvert the new order!"

A figure swept by Shan in a blur, rushing toward Khodrak. It was Dzopa, his own staff raised in the air now. Khodrak's lips curled and he lowered his mendicant staff, holding it with both hands, its metal head aimed at the dobdob like a spear.

The metallic crack of a gun split the air.

Dzopa spun about, groaned, and crumpled to the ground. The soldiers behind Lin spun about, weapons raised. In the same instant Padme darted to Khodrak's side, and Winslow ran into the crowd of Tibetans. One of the howler guardians held a pistol, still extended, its barrel smoking. Lin furiously pointed at the man, and the nearest soldier lunged and slammed his rifle butt against the pistol, knocking it to the ground, then rested his boot on the weapon.

Dzopa twisted, holding his left calf, which was bleeding profusely. Lhandro darted to the man's side and pressed a scarf against the wound. Jokar took two steps toward the dobdob then was restrained by Lepka, whose hand appeared on the ancient lama's shoulder. Tenzin stepped forward and knelt by Lhandro and the dobdob, Khodrak watching Tenzin with a victorious smile.

Shan's eyes shot back and forth from Lin to Dzopa. Then his gaze locked on the mendicant staff in Khodrak's hands.

"Arrest them!" Khodrak shouted at the guards. "You saw what that man with the staff did. Now his companion reveals himself, that one with the chig! And that Han who conspires with them!" he shouted in a victorious tone, pointing at Shan. "Arrest them all! Traitors! Murderers!"

Chig. Shan looked about in confusion. It meant the number one. He looked back at Lhandro, still on the ground beside Tenzin. The simplest, oldest form of representing the number one in Tibetan writing was an inverted U, slanted slightly to the right. Like the birthmark on Lhandro's neck. His eyes moved from Khodrak to Lhandro. The one with the chig.

Shan became aware of Tenzin moving his arm, drawing something in the earth with his finger, then looking at Shan. A shape of curves. It looked like the Arabic number three, slanted to the left, its bottom extended like a tail. It was a shape Shan knew well, the shape of the curved scar on Drakte's forehead. In Tibetan the symbol meant nyasha. Fish. Once the chairman had been looking for a man with a fish.

Khodrak's smile faded as he saw the figure in the dirt, and he turned his back on Tenzin and the dobdob. "Murderers!" he called out again. "Seize them!"

"Murderers?" A voice called out from behind Khodrak. Several of the officials were standing at the edge of the platform now. One of them, a lean older man wearing a grey uniform, examined the chairman of Norbu gompa with a puzzled expression. "You order an arrest?"

"The Religious Affairs officer in Amdo town." The announcement left Khodrak's lips slowly. "It will be written that he was a hero who died for our true cause, who died for the Serenity campaign, who died as an example of how Norbu leads the new order."