Eliot Pattison - Bone Mountain

"But why would Tenzin think it was safe to come to Yapchi today?" Winslow asked.

"He didn't, not necessarily," Shan said. "Jokar said herbs must be gathered in Yapchi Valley for the healing. I should have known. It was a thing the man Tenzin wants to become would do, a thing Lokesh would do without a second thought."

Winslow fixed Shan with a sad gaze. The fugitive abbot had been captured because an ancient medicine lama had asked for herbs to heal an ailing Chinese colonel. The thought somehow reminded Shan of someone else. "Did you go to that durtro like you said, with Gendun and Drakte?" he asked Somo.

Her face tightened, and she nodded. "Herders came, many herders, and said prayers, and talked about what a brave man Drakte was. Gendun stayed afterwards. He said Drakte was having a bad time of things, and he was going back with Shopo to continue the rites. I think they meant for the full ritual." The traditional death rite period was forty-nine days. Somo watched a range of mountains recede in the distance. "There was something… I don't think it meant anything really. But when I was leaving Gendun sought me out. He said we must all learn to understand the dead better. He said to give Shan something, that he had learned something about Drakte." She reached into her pocket and extended a chakpa, one of the bronze sand funnels.

Shan stared at the funnel, struck dumb for a moment by the memory of Gendun teaching him how to use it, then slowly he lifted it from Somo's palm. He examined it carefully, perplexed, then looked inside to see a small slip of paper resting against the inner wall. He slipped the paper out with his finger and read it. He looked up at Somo. "Drakte carried the deity in a blanket," Shan read to his two companions, "but he was learning to unwrap it."

Somo looked at Shan with apology in her eyes, as if she felt she had troubled him with a meaningless message.

"The eye was kept in a little felt blanket," Winslow suggested.

Shan said nothing, but read the paper again, and again. Somo offered an uncertain nod to the American and looked back at the retreating mountains.

"So now what do you do?" Shan asked the woman after several minutes.

Somo did not shift her gaze from the mountains. "When I started from Lhasa three weeks ago, Drakte told me we were doing this to help a Chinese who was going north to help Tibetans. I didn't know about the abbot then, just the stone." She paused and looked at Shan with puzzled eyes. "The abbot and the eye of the deity, in a way they were the same thing."

Shan nodded. "The purbas' help with the eye was just a cover, a way to get Tenzin north in secret. Who would have looked for him on a salt caravan?" He looked up into the woman's face and somehow knew they were sharing the same thought. Drakte had died to warn them, to make sure Tenzin stayed free. Somo was not giving up on Tenzin.

"I am going to the computer as soon as we arrive in Golmud," Somo stated, "in the middle of the night. I will still make Tenzin an employee, under the false name we devised."

"But he's gone," Winslow said.

"It's still my assignment," Somo said in a voice that had grown distant. "And after it's over, whatever happens, I am going to find out about Drakte's killer."

"I think," Winslow said, studying first Shan, then Somo, "it's not over until you find the killer."

They watched the landscape in silence again.

"You can get into the electronic records?" Winslow asked after a long time.

"At university, they made sure I had advanced computer training before returning to teach Tibetan children. With chalk and slate."

Winslow explained about Melissa Larkin, and they spoke together for an hour about the mysteries that had been woven together at Yapchi.

"Did Drakte know that man Chao who was murdered?" Shan asked. Somehow he already knew the answer.

"Yes," Somo said readily. "He was a Tibetan. Many people don't know that, because of the name he took."

"And you knew him also?"

"A month ago Drakte and I were planning to spend two days together by Lamtso. We had been talking about making a family together," she announced in a matter-of-fact tone that caused Shan to turn away, embarrassed, then she paused and looked out the rear of the truck. "But instead, he asked me to go with him to Amdo town, because he had discovered an old friend there we had to meet. He said there would always be time for us to go to Lamtso," she said in a tight voice. "We met at an old stable being used as a garage, and we sat on a bench and ate cold dumplings with his friend, whose name was different when Drakte knew him as a boy. They had me sit in the middle, like a referee."

"What did Chao do? How did he act?" Had it all been a trap to capture Drakte? Shan wondered.

"He was scared. He asked if Drakte knew Director Tuan, like he was warning Drakte. But Drakte just laughed about Tuan. They did not discuss things that were dangerous. Just talk about life on the changtang and things from when they were young. It was just old friends meeting again, that's all. That Chao, he embraced Drakte when we parted and said he was sorry."

"About what?"

"Just that he was sorry. About everything I guess."

"Did Drakte have that ledger with him?" Shan asked.

Somo shook her head. "But afterwards he worked on it all night, because he said he was going to meet with Chao again. I thought at first it was something he was doing for the Lotus Book, to record how the district is so stricken by poverty. It includes every village, every farm, every herding family in Norbu district. Signed by the head of each family."

"The district," Shan said. "Not the township."

Somo nodded. "The Religious Affairs district. The Norbu district that Tuan heads for Religious Affairs."

From a pocket Somo produced a slip of yellow paper and handed it to Shan. "I nearly forgot. Drakte had this in his boot. I keep trying to understand it. I think it came from Chao, but not when I was with them."

It appeared to be a payroll record, with one word handwritten at the top. Dorje, it said, followed by a dash, like it was an address, or person. The dorje was a Buddhist symbol, the small scepter-like object that was sometimes called the thunderbolt to symbolize the teachings of Buddha. Below the name were two columns of handwritten numbers, the first a list of twelve identification numbers, the second a group of twenty. Bureau of Religious Affairs, Amdo, someone had written under the first column, with a check by each identification number in the column. Beside the two top sets of numbers of the first column was written Director Tuan, and below it the single Chinese word wo. It meant I or me. It could mean, Shan realized, Deputy Director Chao. Under the second column was written Public Security.

"It's not his writing," Somo said. "Not Drakte's. It must be Chao's. I asked some questions," she said pointedly. "The head of Public Security in Amdo town was reassigned months ago. No replacement was named. Since Director Tuan used to be the head of Public Security here, he offered to be the interim supervisor. He began to consolidate things. Including payroll."

"You mean the knobs here are being paid by Director Tuan of Religious Affairs?"

Somo bit her lower lip as she nodded.

Gyalo had warned about knobs who did not look like knobs. It explained why the howlers in white, military-style shirts all looked like Public Security.

"And one more thing: it looks like payroll data for the knobs in the district. But only fifteen knobs are known."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the purbas watch the knobs in Amdo town. There have been fifteen stationed out of there for years. We checked with those who clean the barracks. Fifteen based in Amdo, traveling with Tuan sometimes. So there's another five somewhere else. Working in secret."