Eliot Pattison - Bone Mountain

Two soldiers stepped along the wall near Lhandro, as though to rush past him to grab one of the villagers.

Lhandro raised his hand, and stepped forward to the wall to block the soldiers. Shan saw that he had one hand wrapped around his gau. "Yapchi Village," Lhandro proclaimed in a loud, calm voice, "returns your embrace." And his father threw his torch inside their precious wooden house.

"No!" Shan moaned, and lunged forward as the other villagers threw their torches inside the remaining houses. "We have to stop-"

But Lokesh's hand gripped his arm so tightly it hurt. "Because you and I," his old friend said, the pain obvious in his voice, "have no home, we may long too much for others to keep theirs." Lokesh had understood, not at first, but before the torches were thrown. "It is the only way they can speak with those Chinese," he added in a softer, quiet tone.

"That house is so old," Shan said, in a choking breath. "It is their temple." He pulled again, and Lokesh pulled back, with both his hands now. It was already too late. The dry ancient wood was like tinder. Flames were already leaping out the door. Lepka was hobbling up the path, not looking back. The sack still hung at his side. Shan knew what was inside now. There was one thing, out of all the treasured belongings in the house, that he would not leave behind. The photograph of the Dalai Lama.

The soldiers leapt forward as Lin roared out furious orders. The man in the green jacket pulled a portable radio from his pocket and began yelling into it. A moment later the air horn sounded in the distance.

One of the soldiers by Lhandro slammed a baton into his belly, and the headman fell against the low wall, then sprawled on top of it, clutching his abdomen.

Lokesh pushed forward to help Lepka up the steep terrain as other villagers pushed past. Shan stared at them forlornly. They had no hope now. The soldiers would easily overtake them on the trail and turn them over to the knobs. They had destroyed what had become state property. They had interfered with a priority project for the economy.

A woman paused, the large woman who had taken Shan into the village the first day. "Thank you," she said softly. "We'll have to find our deity somewhere else."

The words tore at Shan. They had given up their village, their valley. They were openly defying the army. And the woman had stopped to thank Shan. His eyes welled with moisture. "Your deity is still here," he said hoarsely, but no one heard.

For a moment a mad thought seized him, that he would climb the cliffs and stay, he would search every rock and he would find a way to bring the wrath of the deity down on the soldiers. But then he looked at Lokesh and the others struggling up the slope. They needed his help.

More trucks sped up the valley. Most of the villagers had already left, Shan realized, thinking back on the circle by the fire. The only old ones had been Lhandro's parents, who had doubtlessly insisted on staying. They had all known. They all planned it. They had lovingly cleaned their houses, the way a body would be cleansed for the death rites. The talk at the fire and the singing had been a way of saying farewell to their beautiful village. Someone rushed by to help Lokesh with the old man. Nyma, in the dress of rongpa woman, a tattered red scarf on her shoulders. A soft bellow came from nearby. Shan turned to see Gyalo and Jampa. Lepka laughed as Nyma helped him onto the broad back of the animal, and the yak and monk moved up the trail at a surprisingly brisk pace, the old Tibetan lifting his hand high in glee. "Lha gyal lo!" Lepka called out and Lokesh, a step behind, echoed the cry.

There was still no chance, he thought bitterly. But Nyma waited, and hurried him through a gap in the high ledge that would have been wide enough for one of the utility vehicles used by the troops. She waved a hand when they were through and two figures rose from the top of the ledge. Shan saw the flicker of a knife blade, and suddenly a rope sprang free and logs and rocks tumbled into the opening, filling it to a depth of several feet. Nyma tossed in a small rock, turned with a satisfied gleam, gathered her robe in her hand, and trotted up the trail. Twice more in the next half mile, where the trail narrowed into tight defiles, figures appeared above them and tossed down rocks and logs to block the path. At the last one Winslow was on top, urgently stacking logs and rocks that were being handed up by a chain of villagers.

Below, no more than a few hundred yards behind, they heard whistles and angry shouts. Winslow hesitated, looking in the direction of the approaching soldiers, then began filling the defile, making the wild hooting sounds Shan had first heard when the American had ridden the wild yak.

"If they know we're on the trail, they will know they can intercept us at Chemi's old village," Shan pointed out. It made no sense. They had nowhere to flee to, no sanctuary to hope for.

"The purbas said it would probably be only Lin and his men. They said they think the howlers and the oil workers will not help," Nyma told him. "Gyalo and Jampa are far ahead by now. The old ones will be safe once they reach the gorge above Chemi's old village. It's like a maze above there, full of caves. The people are splitting up. The purbas said the army won't be that interested in pursuit, that the priority for them would be keeping the oil crews working."

But the purbas hadn't looked into Colonel Lin's icy eyes. They hadn't seen the way he had looked at Lokesh and Lhandro when they had first met, or witnessed his furious explosion when the houses had begun to burn.

He waited as Winslow climbed down from the rocks. "You should go. Run ahead. Help Lokesh if you can."

Winslow frowned, then cursed and nodded slowly. "Adios, partner." He set off at a quick pace up the mountain, leaving Shan alone with Nyma. Shan looked after the strange American. Not only did he not understand the man's last words, he wasn't even sure why the American was there. Melissa Larkin was dead, and Winslow was due back at his embassy.

Someone called out from the rocks below. To his amazement Lhandro emerged, wearing one of the company's green jackets and a safety helmet. It was the jacket Somo had given Shan, the village headman quickly explained as he nervously scanned the slope below. He had hidden it on the other side of the wall, with the hat. In the confusion after the fires started he had rolled over the wall, on top of the jacket, and lain as if unconscious. Minutes later, when the trucks of workers arrived to fight the fires, he slipped on the jacket and hat and mingled with the workers.

They jogged slowly on, the last of the fugitives. Lhandro pulled ahead of them, telling them to stay in the gorge as he set off to find the other villagers. Thirty minutes later they paused at the clearing that opened toward Chemi's ruined village. There was no sign of activity. But there was a sound in the wind, the sound of clinking metal. Shan and Nyma ran, hard, across the clearing and into the upper gorge as the metallic rumble increased and they heard the sound of voices on a radio. A rifle shot rang out. A bullet ricocheted high above them. The army would not want them dead, only in custody. They caught glimpses of figures ahead of them in the gorge, disappearing as the trail twisted out of sight. Then the high rock that towered overhead exploded a hundred feet above them. The tank was shooting into the gorge.

Shan paused for a moment to glance behind. Lin was there, in the gorge, his pistol in his hand, with four soldiers behind him. Only four. But four soldiers with automatic weapons would be more than enough. The soldiers would not shoot to kill, but one of their bullets could easily maim for life. A shot rang out, again over their heads, and another. Shan could keep running but a hundred feet ahead he saw Lokesh and the American, and between them Anya, frequently looking back, terror in her eyes.