Eliot Pattison - Bone Mountain

Five minutes later he discovered the source of the scent, a boulder six feet high and nearly as wide, coated over its front surface with red paint. He paced around the boulder several times. The painted surface faced the valley, or more precisely faced the far end of the valley, the derrick and the oil camp beyond. Judging by the many spots of paint on the earth, the paint had been applied in haste, and there had only been enough paint for the front, facing the valley. He was certain it had not been there the day before, or even that morning. It would have stood out in his mind, not merely because of the bright color, but because he had seen such rocks before, usually with faded paint, old paint being overtaken by lichen. In traditional Tibet such painted rocks indicated the home of a protector deity.

He reached out to touch the painted surface and found it tacky, still not fully dry. He searched the base of the rock on his hands and knees. There was no loose soil where a piece of stone might have been buried. There was nothing on the top except a small pile of owl pellets. Someone could have painted the rock to taunt the Chinese. Someone could have painted it to invite a deity to take notice of what was happening in the valley. Someone could have painted it to try to draw a deity back to its eye.

The grass in front of the rock was pressed smooth. He considered the position, with its long open view to the oil camp, and the way the adjacent rocks were arranged in aV shape, ending with the red boulder. Before painting the rock the drummer had sat here, using the rocks to amplify and direct the sound toward the camp.

He walked the ground around the red rock in increasingly wider circles. There was no sign of a horse, only a few bootprints. It could have been, and probably was, only one person on foot. One person carrying a small pot of red paint, and a drum.

A hand on the back of the rock, he paused and closed his eyes. There seemed to be another sound, or at least the remnants of a sound, an odd rushing, as of wind. But there was no wind in that moment. It was like a groan, or perhaps a distant rumbling, or a muffled roar from somewhere closer. Then, abruptly, the drumming began again on the slope above him. He opened his eyes and ran, desperately seeking the source, until he reached the foot of a high cliff and realized the sound came from still higher, inaccessible without circling far around the face of the rock.

He gazed with foreboding back at the red rock. Perhaps, he thought, no one in the oil camp would understand. The soldiers would probably not recognize the significance of a red stone. But then he recalled the latest arrivals at the camp. The howlers would know. The howlers would despise the rock.

The small canyon behind Yapchi was deserted when he reached it. In the village he discovered Winslow on a bench against one of the pressed-earth walls, writing in a tablet of paper, a line of villagers beside him.

"Names and identity-card numbers," he announced when he noticed Shan's inquiring gaze. "If people disappear this goes to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The venture at least has to be accountable for the people it dispossesses."

Shan watched as villagers began filing out of the old wooden house, Lhandro at the door clasping hands with each of them as they departed. He walked to the gate of the house and waited until, the last of the villagers gone, Lhandro joined him. The village headman did not know who had painted the rock and was not aware of any red paint in the village. "Our people are saying it is a sign," he said with a flutter of hope, as if he were not certain himself.

"A sign, at least, that the thief may have brought the eye to the valley," Shan observed.

The headman brightened momentarily, then nodded solemnly.

"There was a sound up there, not the drum," Shan said. "Not the drum. A rushing like wind, but not wind."

Lhandro nodded again and began studying the slopes "People say there are portals on Yapchi Mountain, to the bayal. Maybe that is what happened to Gyalo and Jampa," he added pointedly, as though they may have disappeared into one of the hidden lands.

After a few minutes he invited Shan into the quiet house, where they drank tea and ate cold dumplings with Lhandro's parents as Shan explained Professor Ma's project. None of the villagers had known of an old temple, not even in legends. "Dig anywhere in Tibet and you will find something eventually," Lepka said with a sigh. He was stroking the tiny lamb, which lay cradled in his lap.

"Could it be," Shan wondered, "that the deity resided there once? In a small gompa?"

"There has never been a gompa here," the old man said again, in a stern tone. He turned to contemplate the photograph on the altar.

Shan studied the old man. Had he been told the words the oracle had spoken on the mountain? In my mountains, in my heart, in my blood, the strange hollow voice in Anya had said. Bind them, bind them, bind them, the voice had said, as though speaking of wounded people. So many dead, so many to die. What would the words mean to Lepka?

But the old man was no longer listening, no longer part of the conversation. He had joined his wife at the altar, where they had begun chanting their beads.

Shan stepped outside to find a small cluster of people at the far end of the village, past Winslow's bench. Some were on the ground beside an open blanket of yak hair felt, and villagers were dumping baskets of barley grain into the blanket. Some dropped khatas onto the blanket with the grain, and others dropped pots and kettles near the blanket. As the villagers noticed Shan they greeted him with hopeful expressions and stepped back from the blanket. Lokesh sat helping Nyma tie the handles of the pots together. On his old friend's lap was a pencil stub and a long sheet of paper bearing several lines in Lokesh's hand.

His old friend grinned and patted the ground beside him. "I have begun it," Lokesh said in a satisfied tone as he noticed Shan's interest in the paper. "My message to the Chairman in Beijing."

Shan clenched his jaw and stared at the paper. He had begun to think Lokesh had forgotten about his strange pilgrimage to the capital.

"I will read it to him, to that supreme chairman," the old man said with an uncharacteristic edge of stubbornness in his voice. "We will drink tea together and I will explain the way of things in Tibet. I am sure he does not understand."

Shan returned his friend's gaze. It was a new side to Lokesh, the challenge in his eyes, the resistance in his voice. He was warning Shan in his way, for he feared Shan might argue. But Shan turned away and surveyed the landscape, listening to the rumble of the derrick and the distant, defiant beating of the drum. "I am sure he does not understand," Shan agreed.

Shan joined in the packing of the supplies, which were doubtlessly for those who had fled into the mountains. One of the Yapchi women started singing a soulful song. Another knelt behind a young girl and began braiding her hair. From where they sat on the lower slope the village appeared serene and the sound of the derrick was obscured by the song. It had the air of a festival outing, of a picnic.

Suddenly the serenity was shattered by a loud boom, like thunder, and an odd whistling noise in the sky. The woman stopped singing, looking up with a puzzled grin at first, as though someone was playing a prank, or lighting fireworks. Then, several hundred yards away, the slope exploded. "Anya!" Nyma cried out, and ran toward the village.

Moments later Shan found Lhandro at the northern entrance to the village. The headman stared forlornly toward the vehicle now sitting halfway between the village and the derrick. It spat fire, the thunder erupted again, the whistling returned, and the slope exploded again. The tank had advanced and was attacking the deity stone.