Eliot Pattison - Bone Mountain

"And the soldiers took the statue?" Shan asked.

"Not exactly," Nyma said in a melancholy tone. "When they finished shelling, the Tibetan soldiers were dead, for they had been too weak to flee. The surviving villagers ran to the deity in the center of the valley, about fifty of them, mostly women and children and old men. The Chinese officer of the Lujun laughed and called for them to surrender. If they agreed to be their porters, to carry the soldiers' equipment to the Chinese border, he would let them live. When they refused he selected ten soldiers and sent them with swords among the villagers. They slaughtered the people like goats, cut them into pieces, laughing like it was great sport. No one from that Tibetan officer's family survived."

She turned suddenly and stared at the blackness at the back of the chamber, as if she felt she were being watched from inside the mountain. "Only those few who happened to be away from the village survived. A caravan from the village was away at the holy lake. And there was a girl with sheep up on the slopes who watched it all. But the soldiers found the girl trying to reach the bodies. The officer made her watch as he smashed the deity into tiny pieces with a hammer. Then he took the only piece big enough to recognize, the single eye, the chenyi," she said, meaning the right eye. "The officer said the eye had witnessed the vindication of the Lujun and he would give it to his general as a trophy."

Nyma's voice drifted off and she looked toward the menacing cloud again. "They ordered the girl to find her mother among the bodies, then bound her to her mother's dead body, face to face, and left her there. Monks from the gompa on the other side of Yapchi Mountain found her there after three days."

There was a long silence as Shan studied first Nyma, then the dark cloud.

"And your people recorded the story," Lokesh said over Shan's shoulder-

"That little girl, she was my grandmother. She helped to bury them. Our people don't give the dead to the birds. We give them back to the soil. She helped put them in a big grave. When I was young she used to sit at the grave and recite all the names of the dead to me."

The Golok had his chang bottle in midair as Nyma made the announcement. He lowered the bottle, stared at it for a moment. "The bastards," he offered, as though to comfort the nun, then packed the bottle away.

"Afterwards," Nyma added, "people kept watch for the chenyi stone. It was kept in an army museum near Beijing for many decades and a man from Yapchi obtained special charms from lamas and traveled there to bring it back. But the Chinese shot him as a spy. The eye disappeared after the communists came. But we found out that parts of the Lujun were reconstituted into the People's Liberation Army."

"The 54th Mountain Combat Brigade," Shan suggested.

Nyma nodded. "After they were assigned to duty in Tibet, people kept a close watch on them. Another man from the village went to speak with the army but he was arrested and went to lao gai, where he died. A secretary saw the chenyi stone on the desk of the colonel of the brigade in Lhasa and sent word. After a few months a letter was sent to Lhasa, signed by all our villagers, asking that it be returned. But the only thing that happened was that the township council sent back the letter and demanded extra taxes from us. Then last year when the Chinese celebrated August First in Lhasa that colonel had it taped to the turret of a tank in the parade." August First was the day reserved for celebrating the People's Liberation Army. "The soldiers laughed and pointed at it to taunt the Tibetans. Someone took a photograph and brought it to us."

"Purbas," Shan said, not expecting an answer. "Drakte stole it back."

"Someone else, I think. I don't know for certain. Purbas know how dangerous it can be to share secrets. We don't want to know. People get captured. The Chinese use drugs that unbind their tongues."

"But you were in Lhasa and brought the chenyi stone to the hermitage," Shan suggested.

Nyma shook her head. "I was working in our valley," she said enigmatically. "One day our oracle spoke about a Chinese returning the eye. I thought she meant the army would bring it back one day. Only afterwards, when I went to speak about it with some purbas, did I know the eye had already been recovered from those who had stolen it from us."

Our oracle. The nun spoke as if every community still had its oracle. But until arriving at the hermitage, Shan could not recall ever having heard a Tibetan speak of an active oracle. Even Lokesh, who clung so steadfastly to tradition, spoke of oracles as part of some distant past.

The nun looked inquiringly toward the black cloud, which was nearly over them now. Dremu watched it too, with suspicious, worried eyes, and retreated deeper into the cave. "I spoke about what the oracle said, and later Drakte sought me out and asked me many questions, all about the eye and the village. Later people came and took me to the hermitage."

Shan studied Tenzin, who had stepped forward to study the strange cloud, then turned back to Nyma. "Why would the purbas be so interested in returning the eye?"

The nun shrugged again and cast a small frown toward Shan. She was speaking of things that seldom were spoken out loud. "The purbas want justice," she ventured. "It is the right thing to do."

There was a rumble of wind- not thunder, but a roaring rush of air that brought an abrupt darkening, as if night had fallen. Hail began to drop, small kernels at first, but soon balls nearly half an inch in diameter. The nun nodded toward the sky, as though she understood some secret about the hailstorm. Lokesh stared back at the tunnel that extended toward the heart of the mountain, where the local earth deity might live.

Sometimes in Tibet hailstorms came with such violence and such large stones that crops were destroyed in seconds, people even killed. The Tibetans treated such deaths with particular reverence, as if the victim had been summoned by a sky deity for a special purpose. Shan extended his hand out into the storm. The hail stung his palm but he kept it extended, collecting the stones.

At his side he sensed Nyma moving, and turned to see her trying to pull Tenzin back from outside the cave. The tall Tibetan had removed his coat and stepped into the open, bending his back to the storm, protected only by his thin shirt, letting the stones lash at him. A sudden gust whipped stones into Shan's face, stinging his cheeks. He dropped the hail in his hand and retreated into the cave. Sometimes it was difficult not to believe in the earth deities.

But, incredibly, Tenzin pulled away as the nun reached for him, stepping further into the storm and kneeling, curling his head into his knees, his hands wrapped around his neck. It was as though he were being flogged, as though he were inviting the deities to punish him. Tenzin seemed to understand something about the storm as well, but it was different than what Nyma sensed. Or perhaps the secret Tenzin understood, Shan thought, was just about himself.

As she pulled at Tenzin's shoulder, Shan ran toward the nun and grabbed Tenzin's other shoulder. Together they dragged him inside. He did not seem to notice their grip at first, then looked at them with wild, surprised eyes. His shirt was torn, and there were several tiny red spots where the stones had pierced his skin.

As Nyma wrapped Tenzin's chuba around his shoulders, Dremu gasped in fright and pointed into the storm. An unearthly wail rolled down the slope, and a wraith-like shape emerged through the greyness, a figure mounted on a small black horse. The rider was hunched over in the saddle, the horse galloping, futilely trying to escape the hail. The sound was the crying of the horse as the stones pummeled its flesh. Shan sensed Nyma shudder, then retreat deeper into the cave, followed quickly by the other Tibetans. But Shan took a step forward, watching in fear. The animal, its rider limp in the saddle, could run off a ledge in such a frenzy. He pulled his hat low and darted into the storm. The horse whinnied louder as it saw him, then slowed as Shan extended a hand. A moment later, one hand on the bridle, Shan was running back to cover with the frantic creature.