Eliot Pattison - Bone Mountain

Suddenly there was a scraping sound, the sound of the bar of being dragged out of its iron straps, and the door flew open, casting such a brilliant shaft of sunlight inside that Shan and his friends threw their hands up to shield their eyes.

Director Tuan walked in, followed by a middle-aged Han in one of the light blue uniforms. A stethoscope hung from the man's neck, a small radio protruded from one of his tunic pockets. Tuan took in Shan and his companions with a quick glance, then stepped into the shadows at the rear of the stable as the physician stood silently at the door, watching with anticipation on his face. Two younger men in the light blue uniforms hovered outside the door, as though standing by to assist the doctor. Shan stepped sideways and saw that a stretcher, collapsed, leaned on one man's shoulder. He heard, but could not see, the heavy boots again, several pairs. Soldiers seemed to be pacing anxiously somewhere near the ambulance. Someone angrily snapped an order. But he could see no soldiers, only men in white shirts with epaulettes or medical uniforms.

A slight, small-shouldered man suddenly stepped into the doorway, silhouetted by the brilliant sunlight. Shan recognized the man's boots before he saw the man's grey uniform. A chill crept down his spine as he looked up into a face that seemed to be pounded out of corroded steel. The man might have been in his early thirties, but he had already acquired the cold machine-like demeanor which would likely stay with him for the rest of his career- the frigid, permanent sneer that Shan had seen so many times in the gulag. The man in grey was a Public Security officer, the pockmarked one Gyalo had spoken of, the one with dirty ice for eyes.

The knob studied Shan and his companions with a cold glare. Looking at Tuan, he uttered a low growling sound. It could have been anger, or disappointment, or the rumbling, expectant sound some predators made before a long-awaited feed. The doctor looked at the knob officer with a frustrated, impatient frown and held up four fingers. Four prisoners, he must be saying, when there should be five. Not four fingers exactly, for curiously, the doctor had pushed his little finger down and held up three fingers and a thumb. The officer replied with something like a snarl, and a fist raised a few inches in the air.

Something extraordinary was happening at Norbu gompa. It wasn't just that the gompa was in the hands of political commissars, or even that Shan and his friends had been seized. There was something else, something to do with the way the Religious Affairs officials acted like Public Security soldiers, the way they were being detained by a howler, with only the single knob officer present. Maybe the howlers were looking for Tenzin because of his work with nagas, but Public Security wanted him for something else. There was another possibility that had so frightened Shan he had not mentioned it to his companions. The knobs were desperately searching for a man with a croaking, growling voice- the notorious Tiger, whose broken voice box made a sound like no other. The knob officer had been forcing people to read to him. The only way a man could hide such a voice was to stay mute. Wheels spun in Shan's mind. Tenzin had left the hermitage the night Chao died. The government thought the purba leader Tiger was the likely murderer. Tenzin certainly knew purbas. Was their entire journey an elaborate ploy by the purbas to keep the Tiger hidden?

Shan closed his eyes, trying to calm himself. He took a step back, to stand in front of Lokesh. Here was the way it ended, or ended again, in a dark musty stable while their captors waited for them to cower, or invite a beating by a hint of resistance. If Tuan and the knobs thought they had been harboring the Tiger, no mercy would be shown. A strange sensation surged through him, a floating distant feeling that he recognized, because he had seen it in others' eyes at execution grounds. This was how firing squads often worked when the political officers had decided against a public exhibition, putting their victims against a wall early in the day, before most people awoke. It was how they would treat the Tiger when they caught up with him. And perhaps any of those who sheltered him. Surely they wouldn't do such a thing in a gompa. But this was Khodrak's gompa, an instrument not of Buddha but of the howlers. And a doctor would have syringes that would preserve the quiet, and be even more effective than any bullet.

He saw that everyone was looking at him, and knew he must have made a sound, a small utterance of fear. He turned slowly to Lokesh, whose eyes, assuming the cast of a prisoner, had also grown distant. He could push his friend deep into the shadows and charge the officer, maybe distract them long enough for Lokesh to escape. At least the chenyi stone was still safe in the mountains, a voice whispered in the back of his mind.

Someone moved at Lokesh's side. Tuan stepped back into the light, looking expectantly at Shan, pausing, as if waiting for Shan to say something. But then a shadow crossed the door and another figure entered. Khodrak, holding his staff, and behind him, Padme, in a clean robe, his arm in a sling. The Chairman's eyes flared, not at Shan but at the doctor and the knob officer. No one moved. The knob and the doctor seemed confused.

Shan studied the monk they had brought from Rapjung. Padme stood straight, in no apparent pain now. His arm was in a sling, although he had not complained to them of his arm hurting. His robe was not only spotless, it was fringed with the same narrow strip of gold thread that Khodrak and the other committeeman wore. Shan recalled the third chair at the Committee table and the way the others had called the young monk Rinpoche. It had been Padme's chair.

"Some of the old ones can turn themselves into smoke and drift away," Padme said, casting a thin smile toward the knob officer, who replied with a sour frown and marched out the door.

Khodrak sighed and studied the loft and its little portal. Someone tall, and strong, and lean might have climbed out. He put his hand on Tuan's arm and seemed to push. One side of the Director's mouth curled down. He relented, stepping back out of the stable followed by the doctor.

"There is a mistake, Chairman Rinpoche," Padme said to Khodrak. He looked at Shan. "These people are our friends. Our heroes. We cannot allow them to be abused."

Shan stared in confusion. Public Security and Religious Affairs had been about to unleash their wrath on them but Khodrak and Padme had turned them away.

"Where is he?" Nyma cried out. "You have Tenzin. Why? You can't just-" Nyma looked from Padme to Khodrak, then to Shan, and her words choked away.

Khodrak seemed not to hear her. "Take a moment," he said, and gestured toward the ground. Padme hitched up his robe and sat on the stable floor, cross-legged, pulling out his rosary. He gestured for Nyma to follow, and in a moment all of them but Khodrak were sitting in a small circle. Padme began reciting the mani mantra, waving his hand to encourage the others to join in as Khodrak paced around the outside of the circle, tapping his staff in front of him like an old beggar.

It was a strange, unsettling ceremony. Padme stopped speaking after a moment but kept waving his hand, directing the others like a choir, Nyma and Lhandro chanting awkwardly as Lokesh and Shan uneasily watched the young monk. After perhaps two minutes, Khodrak halted and Padme abruptly rose, brushing off his robe, the words of the mantra slowly fading.

"Will we find their friend?" Khodrak asked Padme.

"We will find their friend," Padme replied quickly, as if reciting more of the ceremony. Then Khodrak turned and moved out the door, his staff resting on his shoulder.

Padme turned to address Lhandro. "There are no words to express my shame," he said to the rongpa. "There was a mistake." The monk looked back at the door and nodded, then turned to Shan. "It's an old shed used for little other than storage. Someone could have mistakingly inserted the door bar, that's all," he said tentatively, as if suggesting that was how they should explain what had happened. "The medical team is overzealous. They are trained to act extremely, for the containment of disease." He stood, waiting, as the ambulance pulled away, then turned back to them. "The kitchen will give you some food for the trail," Padme suggested. "I will see to it myself." With a gesture for them to follow Padme stepped out into the sunlight.