Eliot Pattison - Bone Mountain

The woman, however, sometimes took wool to Amdo town, the nearest settlement of any size, and read newspapers there. A famous abbot was fleeing south to India, with Public Security and howlers racing to catch him. A manhunt was underway for two terrorists, one a recent Dalai Cult infiltrator from across the border, the other the notorious resistance leader called Tiger, a general of the purbas, who had been sighted in the region. The troops were telling people they would be imprisoned for helping him, she announced, and in the next breath offered a quick prayer for the man. Heroes of the army and model workers were being assembled in Lhasa for the biggest May Day parade in years. Shan listened closely to the woman, who seemed bursting with news and rumors. But she made no mention of a stolen stone eye or killers of purbas.

"Has there been word of the murdered Religious Affairs official?" Shan asked. The question silenced everyone within earshot. Alarmed faces stared at Shan. "His name was Chao, from Amdo town."

Nyma appeared from inside Lhandro's tent. "I knew of Chao," she said with a worried expression. "Those howlers from Amdo come over our mountain into Yapchi sometimes. He was the only one who did not examine private altars when he visited homes, never ordered people to open their gaus. He was Tibetan, but had taken a Chinese name." It was a practice the Chinese encouraged among young Tibetan students.

"That monk spoke to you about the murder?" Shan asked. He remembered the ride from their encounter with the minibus. Nyma had been unusually quiet, sharing none of Lokesh's excitement over seeing more flocks of geese.

"Only briefly." Nyma kept her eyes on the ground as she spoke. "It was very violent, very bloody. Chao was stabbed in the back. It happened in a garage that used to be a stable, at the edge of town, just two nights ago."

Shan stared at her.

"Is that important?"

"Two nights ago was probably when Drakte was attacked," Shan explained. "The wound that killed him was inflicted many hours before we saw him."

Nyma's eyes welled with moisture and she turned away for a moment, looking at the lake. "You don't know that for certain," she said.

"No," Shan admitted. But he was almost certain. He had seen many stab wounds in his Beijing incarnation.

"Drakte? Drakte!" a woman gasped behind Shan. He turned to see the woman in the brightly colored apron, her hands at her mouth. "Our Drakte!" she cried, and the other dropka in earshot pressed closer as she told them the news in low, despairing tones.

Shan patiently answered their questions about the purba's death, then asked his own.

"He was here only last week," the woman explained, "talking with us, asking us questions, playing with the children. One afternoon he took all the children and made a new cairn on a hill." Shan followed her gaze toward a tall grass mound half a mile away crowned by a small tower of stones. The woman slowly sank upon a boulder by the fire.

"What questions? What did Drakte ask?" Shan inquired, squatting beside the woman.

"The number of sheep and goats we have," the woman said woodenly. "Who has yak and who has goats. Where the nearest fields of barley might be. How much fodder we cut for the winter."

Barley. Shan stared at the woman, then at Lhandro and Nyma. The abbot and the Director of Religious Affairs had been counting fields of barley. Counting them on the changtang pastureland, where no barley grew. He darted to his blanket and unrolled it to find the pouch the dropka woman had brought through the storm. They leafed through Drakte's book together until they found a page near the end captioned Lamtso Gar- Lamtso Camp- dated the week before. There was a column for barley, marked none, and others for sheep, yak, and goats.

"This camp is our home for much of the year," the woman explained. "Everyone else just visits for the salt." She pointed to the columns with obvious pride. One yak, eighteen sheep, five goats read the entry for Lamtso Gar. And two dogs.

If it made no sense that the abbot and a senior howler were collecting such data, it made even less sense Drakte would be. But Drakte had not only collected the data, he had certified it. At the bottom of the page were signatures, and beneath the signatures a note Shan suspected was added later. Last year, Drakte had written, a two-year-old girl died of starvation here.

Shan leafed through the following pages and pointed to entries that had no signatures, only circles or X's.

"Even those who could not write had to sign," the woman explained. "He insisted there be an entry for every family, every home. He said bad things until they made their marks," she added in a low, perplexed voice.

"Bad things?"

The woman hung her head, as if embarrassed. "He was tired, and worried. He was a good boy."

"What things?" Shan asked again.

The woman stared at the ground and whispered so low Shan had to lean toward her to hear. "He said sign or else all your children will grow up to hate you." She shivered and folded her arms over her breast.

Shan stared at the woman, then at the ledger.

Suddenly a loud curse echoed through the camp. Dremu was yelling at a middle-aged woman who was throwing pebbles at him and encouraging the children to do likewise. The Golok raised his fist threateningly, but turned and broke into a fast stride toward the fire. When he reached the ring of stones he paused, looked at Lhandro, then stepped behind Shan. Lhandro, the soft-spoken rongpa, had thrown stones, too.

"This Golok is not welcome," Lhandro said stiffly.

"You would welcome me…," Shan said in confusion, not needing to ask the obvious question: Why would Lhandro welcome a Chinese but not another Tibetan?

"I don't mean all Goloks," Lhandro explained in a heavy voice. "But this man's clan were bandits. Once that band raided many camps and villages between here and the ranges in Amdo the Goloks call home. They attacked many innocent clans, stole many herds and bags of barley."

"Those bandits died a long time ago," Dremu muttered. "Caught by Public Security and executed."

"Is this man still a bandit?" Lhandro demanded of Shan.

Dremu gave a grunt-like laugh, as though to say, if only he could have it so good.

"You don't need this man," Lhandro said when Shan did not reply. "You are going to Yapchi with us."

"But the purbas arranged it," Nyma interjected. "I think they wanted someone who knows the mountains, knows the hiding places, knows where patrols look. We aren't used to knobs. Drakte arranged it," she whispered soberly, as if it settled the matter.

"I don't understand," Shan said. "Who else is going to Yapchi Valley?" Their trip was supposed to be a secret.

"We have been waiting for you," Lhandro said, sweeping his hand toward the white tent where the men had begun sewing a mound of the filled salt pouches shut. "Those from my village who came to the salt camp. Five of us from Yapchi, and forty sheep. We leave at dawn." As though to ease Shan's doubt, the rongpa produced a tattered map from his pocket and unfolded it, showing Shan the lake, a large oval blue shape at the edge of the changtang. Then he traced a route east along the shore and north through the mountains into Amdo, the part of Tibet that Beijing called Qinghai Province. Shan studied the map. It was surprisingly rich in detail, including a fifty-mile-wide sector of red hash marks along the far shore of Lamtso. Along the top of the map was a large legend. Nei Lou. It meant classified, a state secret. He glanced up at Lhandro, who returned his gaze with challenge in his eyes, then pointed to the red marks. The legend over the marks said Toxic Hazard Zone.

"An army base?"

"No," Lhandro sighed. "Worse. There are places in this region where special weapons were tested. Things that caused disease, or killed everything with chemicals. Some say they were used on herds of wild animals. Some say on bands of nomads who refused to be registered. But no one goes in the places with red marks, not even the army. Sometimes people find things, canisters on the ground, or a herd of sheep that has died for no clear reason, and the army comes and declares a new zone. The army puts signs up, and fences sometimes."