CHAPTER SIX

Shan watched the high ridge with worry as he walked back to his truck. The night before, Lokesh had not been at the little house in the hills they had claimed for their home. He should have returned by now. Had his old friend stayed with the flesh cutters to perform more rituals for his dead friend? Or was he back at Jamyang’s shrine now, purifying it after the stain of suicide? Shan prayed that he had stayed with the flesh cutters. The upper valley was overflowing with police. Meng had reported that Liang was already dispatching patrols into the high valleys. The long prayer horns had sounded again at dawn, as if taunting the searchers. They would keep expanding their search. The gentle old Tibetan would be like fresh meat before such hungry dogs.

He was lost in his worries as he opened the door and settled behind the wheel, was not even aware of the youth waiting beside him until the tattooed hand seized his wrist.

“You’re taking me for a ride,” the stranger growled. A long folding knife, a switchblade, appeared in his other hand. He did not bother to open it. “Exactly where I say, Old Mao. No questions.”

Old Mao. It was slang of the Chinese cities, used by street gangs for grey-suited bureaucrats.

Shan turned toward the stranger. He was barely out of his teens, not much younger than his own son, who had once led a street gang. He had seen him before, carrying a sack of rice. “If you raised your sleeve,” Shan asked conversationally, “would I see a black bird?”

The back of the stranger’s hand slammed into his jaw. It was answer enough. Shan shook off the pain and started the truck.

Like so many others in the county, the old farm compound had been abandoned years earlier, a victim of the early campaigns against landowners after the Chinese army had arrived. The fields had gone to brush and small trees, the stone stable at the top of the old pasture above the house had weeds growing out of its roof. A crib for storing grain had been partially dismantled. To one side a tall roof had been raised on poles, under which the cabs of two heavy trucks were parked. A man with grease on his face looked up from an open engine compartment as Shan pulled to a stop.

The house, built in the traditional style with quarters for animals below and humans above, also seemed to have been untouched for years. Its windows were cracked, the protector deity painted on the wall by the entry so faded as to be almost unrecognizable. But inside, a fresh coat of whitewash reflected the light of several hanging lanterns.

Two Chinese youths at the end of the chamber looked up as Shan was pushed toward the staircase. One, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, held a knife in his hand, the other was extracting a knife from the wall. An old cloth thangka, a painting of one of the sacred female dakinis elegantly rendered in shades of blue and gold, had been hung as a target. She was torn and sliced into fragments. They had been throwing their blades at her head. For a moment Shan forgot everything else as he stared at the scene. He fought the temptation to dart forward and pull the painting from the wall. Lokesh would have stood in front of the dakini to protect her.

One of the youths noticed Shan’s expression. His lips curled in a sneer. “Cao ni mai!” “Fuck your mother.”

His escort pushed him up the stairs, into what could have passed for a brothel in any eastern city. The plank walls of the upper floor were covered with gaudy silk screen hangings, images of fighting dragons, fighting roosters, fighting serpents, and scantily clad women frolicking with pandas. The scent of onions and steamed rice mingled with incense, not Tibetan ritual incense but a cloying mix of jasmine and cinnamon. A bright lantern was suspended over a table where four men played mahjong.

“They say you know that lama who lives alone up on the mountain.” The man who spoke waved the others from the table. He was in his forties, a compact figure with long black hair and the hard, small face of a jungle warrior.

Shan took a seat across from him before replying. “Since when do the Jade Crows care about hermits?”

“Back home we count monks among our best customers.”

“You’re a long way from Yunnan.” Shan glanced at the other men, who stood in the shadows as if awaiting orders.

“Fresh mountain air. It does us all good.” The man lit a cigarette.

“The lama was a friend of mine. He died.”

The stranger hesitated. “Died? Jamyang died? When?”

“The same day as those at the convent. I didn’t know the others.”

The man’s eyes flattened as he studied Shan, like those of a coiling snake. “You only got to know them after they died. You stood over them at the convent, sought them out in that meat locker, sought out naked dead people. Back home we could arrange for you to do it on a weekly basis. Big money in fetishes.” He exhaled a plume of smoke in Shan’s face. “Except it was my brother you treated like a piece of meat.”

“I do not know what happened to the bodies if that’s what you want to know.”

“The head of our clan deserved better.”

The head of the clan. The dead man had been the head of the Jade Crows. “No one deserves to have their head cut from their neck,” Shan replied.

The words brought a snarl to the man’s face.

Shan glanced at the cold, expectant faces of the men who watched him. Early in his career Shan had pursued an investigation to Yunnan, where much of the population was only two or three generations removed from the warrior tribes who once ruled the province’s jungles. His case had been dropped after his informant had been tortured and killed. Bamboo splints had been pounded under the man’s fingernails before his throat had been slashed. Shan had insisted on seeing the photographs of the dead man, and paid for it with several sleepless nights. “I am not the killer.”

“You?” the gang leader spat with a cold laugh. “Three competitors jumped my brother once and he sent one to his grave and the others to the hospital. I am Lung Tso. My brother was Lung Ma. People in Kunming quake at the name of the Lung brothers.” Lung studied Shan in silence, taking in his tattered clothes. “A man like you doesn’t take out a Jade Crow.”

“What kind of man does?” Shan asked.

Lung’s hand reached below the table. There was a blur of movement and his fist hammered a dagger into the table an inch from Shan’s hand. Shan did not move. “You were not brought here to ask us questions! I want what is ours returned!”

“I am the ditch inspector for the northern townships. You have me confused with someone else.”

Shan braced himself as Lung sprang from his chair. He pulled the dagger from the wood then aimed the point at Shan’s throat. “You may wear the clothes of a ditch inspector and drive the truck of the ditch inspector but I can see your eyes. And you were at the old convent with those bodies. We can see you talking with that damned knob lieutenant. You are no ditch inspector. Why would a ditch inspector be at the murder scene? You’re a fucking informer. Who do you work for? Not the Armed Police, I know that much.”

“I take that to mean the Armed Police told you I was at the convent,” Shan replied. He remembered now, with new worry, that Liang has sent one of the olive-coated men to stand at the gate. Shan had been seen while he had been examining the bodies.

Lung Tso flipped the dagger in the air, catching it by the handle without taking his eyes from Shan.

“I have a certificate of appointment signed by the county governor. Colonel Tan. Surely you are acquainted with him.” Shan could not imagine Tan allowing such immigrants into his county without a personal introduction, to gauge his new inhabitants and demonstrate the tight reins he kept on his county.

Lung winced. “Ironfist Tan they used to call him. The prick came to town and ordered us to stand before him in the square like we were new recruits. He looked old. More like Rusty Fist now.”

“He could still pound you into the ground without even blinking.”

Lung’s nod was so subtle Shan barely saw it. He did not see the stick that slammed into his cheek from over his shoulder. He gasped, unprepared for the stinging pain, and turned to see the youth who had escorted him from town holding a thin length of bamboo. As Shan watched, he reached to a wall hook and pulled down a leather-bound baton that ended in a cluster of wires bent into jagged angles at their ends. Pioneers were not allowed much baggage, but the Kunming settlers had managed to bring their tools with them.

“You met Genghis,” Lung said with a thin smile, gesturing to the youth.

Shan struggled to keep his voice level. “He doesn’t strike me as Mongolian.”

“He just likes the name. A bloodthirsty bastard who made sure everyone in the known world respected his clan.”

As if on cue Genghis slammed the end of the baton against the back of a chair. It splintered the wood. Shan did not bother to wipe away the blood that dripped down his cheek. He watched the wires of the baton. If they hit his face they could take out an eye.

Lung muttered a curt syllable and suddenly hands were all over Shan, pulling him up, searching his pockets, turning down his socks, then dumping the contents of his pockets on the table. His truck keys. His pocketknife. A blue stone he had rubbed smooth during his years of imprisonment. Short sticks of incense. The remaining clay deity he had bought in Baiyun. Lung Tso picked up the figurine, then the stone, studying each for a moment before setting it down. It was as if, Shan realized, the gang leader didn’t know exactly what he was looking for. “Perhaps if you told me what you seek,” he offered.

Lung slapped him. “Who the fuck are you?” he demanded. He slammed his fist down on the little deity, smashing it into dust, then hooked a finger toward the men behind him and strong arms slammed Shan back into his chair. Genghis pulled open Shan’s shirt then paused, lifting out the small gau Shan wore around his neck. It quieted the gang for a moment. A spirit box, many Chinese called such amulets. The people of Yunnan were known to be superstitious.

“There were three bodies in the refrigerator,” Shan stated. He tried to appear unconcerned about his gau. The only thing he had taken from Lung Ma’s body was inside the amulet box.

“I know of only two. I want what is ours returned,” Lung repeated.

He knew of only two. Meng had been attacked and the constables had come running to her, leaving the bodies unguarded. If he sought something belonging to a murder victim the first place to look would be with the body but Lung knew it was not with the body.

“I don’t care what kind of arrangement you have with the Armed Police. Those bodies are the concern of a special Public Security squad. They will declare war on the Jade Crows if they think you have their bodies.”

Lung stared in silence.

“And there were three,” Shan repeated. “Your brother. A nun. And a foreigner. Find out what they had in common and we will find their killer.”

“We?” Lung spat.

“I told you. My friend also died that day. He is dead because of those murders. He died unsettled. I told him I would find a way to resolve things.”

The men holding Shan released him and backed away. Lung shot a nervous glance toward them. The dark, thick forests of Yunnan were famous for their ghosts. “You told him?” he asked uneasily. “He’s dead.”

“In Tibet the spirits of those who die violent deaths wander forlornly until there is resolution.” His captors did not object as he began to return the items on the table to his pockets. “They are called jungpo. Hungry ghosts. They like the night. They like to hound those who owe them something.”

The words brought another long silence. Genghis cursed under his breath and retreated another step.

Only Lung seemed unaffected. “A Chinese helping some dead Tibetan? I don’t think so. More like a goddamned informant scavenging for loot.”

“My friend Jamyang. The abbess. Your brother. They’re all jungpo now. The old convent isn’t so far from here. Lung Ma will probably wander back this way looking for you. What will you tell him when he asks why he had to die? What will be your promise when he demands his killer be found?”

Lung glanced again at his men. Shan’s words had clearly unsettled them. The dagger in his hand shot forward again, embedding in the table against Shan’s hand, raising a trickle of blood. “It’s you my brother will come after if you keep interfering,” he growled, lifting the blade. Shan went very still as the point touched his wrist and pushed up his sleeve as though searching for a blood vessel. It stopped at the tattooed number on Shan’s forearm. A cruel grin split Lung’s face. “Lao gai?” he asked, using the term for hard-labor punishment, the worst of Lhadrung’s prisons.

Shan silently nodded.

“How long?”

“Five years.”

“Where?”

“The Four hundred and fourth People’s Construction Brigade. Thirty miles south of here.”

Lung grinned. “Perfect. Good as an admission that you are a killer and a thief.”

Shan watched in surprise as Lung withdrew the blade then produced a pencil and scrap of paper and wrote down the number. “If you had something to do with my brother’s death I will see that you take days to die,” he growled.

Lung tucked the paper into his pocket, then tilted his knife and sliced a long, wide splinter off the edge of the tabletop, and then methodically cut it into five smaller, flat splinters that he lay in front of him. As he did so one of the men behind him gripped Shan’s wrist and forced it open, spreading his fingers on the table. “This is what I will tell my brother we are doing if he comes asking. This is how Jade Crows deal with informers.” He looked back to Genghis. “Vodka,” he barked, as if settling in for the evening’s entertainment.

The gang leader stared at Shan until the youth brought him the bottle and poured him a glass. He downed half of it in one swallow before speaking again. “The sun has gone down. We have all night. First,” Lung said in a matter-of-fact tone, “you will tell me where it is, what that damned lama gave my brother.” He opened the drawer in the table, extracted a small hammer and lifted one of the long splints, then paused, looking up in confusion. One of the hangings with the dragons was pulsing with red light.

Genghis pulled the hanging back to expose a window. He cursed. “The knob bitch!”

Lieutenant Meng was leaning against her car when they brought Shan out, a police radio in her hand, held like a weapon. Over her shoulder a portable police strobe was flashing. Another car, with two constables, waited down the lane. Genghis shoved him toward Meng and retreated.

“Follow me,” was all she said.

*   *   *

His hand shook so badly he had trouble inserting the key into the ignition. He sped out of the farm compound, fishtailing in the gravel. As the farm disappeared behind a hill he stopped, clenching the wheel, and a sob escaped his throat. Jigten was right. He did not understand what had been happening in Tibet. The Tibet he knew did not have Chinese gangs living in remote valleys, did not have Chinese intellectuals living in tracts of shabby cottages. Like his Tibetan friends he had lived on the fringes too long, trying to ignore the long convoys of immigrants, the opening of the rail line to Lhasa that was bringing in colonists by the thousands. The Tibet he had come to know was occupied Tibet, with millions of Tibetans controlled by small armed pockets of Chinese, where there had been no doubt that Tibet could step forward with its own culture once those pockets had been removed. But that Tibet was being consumed from the inside out.

He realized that Meng’s car had also stopped, waiting for him. The Tibet he had known also did not have Public Security officers who helped him. He pressed his hands on the wheel, calming himself. “When the world has turned upside down,” Lokesh had once told him, “just turn a somersault and find a new way to stand.” He wiped the blood from his hand and put the truck back into gear.

Meng led him back to town, into the gravel lot beside the police post. “How did you know I was there?” he asked when they climbed out of their vehicles.

“One of the constables said that Genghis was in your truck. He’s the little prick Lung sends to summon people.” She took a step and pointed him toward the teahouse on the corner that served as the town’s sole café.

“I need a map of Tibet and a flashlight,” he said, reaching to open his gau.

She frowned, not hiding her impatience, then stepped back to her car and handed him a map and a light.

Shan quickly located the towns on Jamyang’s list, the paper Lung Tso had meant to torture him for. They were all border towns, on roads that led across the Tibetan border to Nepal, India, and Bhutan. When he looked up, Meng was standing at his shoulder. “I’ve been ordered to arrange for more pressure in the hills,” she declared in a tight voice as she gestured again toward the teahouse.

“Pressure?”

“Reconnaissance in force they call it. Anyone who does not cooperate gets detained. The owner of the teahouse has been held for questioning.”

“Why?”

“Failure to maintain a complete record of those who use the Internet connections at his tables. New patrols are going out. Someone is knocking down the new road signs in Chinese. Yesterday an Armed Police patrol stopped a farmer and when he couldn’t produce his papers they shot the yak he was taking to market.”

“Those four-legged splittists are particularly troublesome.”

Meng frowned again. “The constables were ordered to go out and bring it back, for the kitchen at district headquarters. They reported that they couldn’t find it.”

Shan stepped to the beat-up sedan parked beside Meng’s car, the vehicle used by the constables. He ran the flashlight beam along the body of the car, then plucked a tuft of long black fibers from the seam where the trunk met the body. Meng said nothing as he raised the hairs in the beam of light, then let them drift away in the wind. She had known the constables had found the yak, and probably returned the meat to the farmer. She had known and wanted him to know she knew.

For a few heartbeats they stared at each other, then she nodded toward the rear door of the teahouse. “And I have been ordered to find those who are playing those damned horns in the hills. We have decided they are unpatriotic.”

Shan hesitated as they reached the building. “And ordered to find me?”

Her answer was to open the door.

The little café was dark except for a single table in the center, under a naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Major Liang sat in front of a file on the table, staring at the ember of his cigarette. Meng settled into the chair across from the major and looked up at Shan. He should run. He should find Lokesh and hole up in a cave for few months’ meditation. With every instinct screaming against it, Shan sat down.

“I only get assigned to very special projects,” Liang declared, speaking to his cigarette. “Three years ago a monastery went on strike five days before a scheduled visit by some foreign diplomats. The monks thought the visit gave them some leverage over us. They tore up their loyalty oaths, put up a picture of their damned splittist leader. So I was called in. By the end of the first day, the monks were en route to ten different prisons, never to see one another again. By the end of the second, bulldozers had leveled the monastery. By the end of the fourth day, all the rubble was hauled away and I had new highway maps printed showing a blank space where the monastery had been. When we intercepted the dignitaries we apologized and explained there had been a foolish mistake, crossed wires in the planning. We showed them the empty map and took them to a tame monastery where the monks greeted them by singing patriotic songs. After everyone was gone I brought in ten truckloads of salt and covered the old site. Nothing will grow there for decades.” He finally looked up at Shan. “I got a medal and a promotion for that.”

“Surely a man of your talents belongs in Beijing,” Shan observed in a flat voice.

“But I so deeply enjoy what I do. I am a field commander, not a paper pusher. I am due in a week to address some new problems in Rutok,” he declared, referring to the county in far western Tibet whose number of prisons and internment camps rivaled even those of Lhadrung County. “Another damned monk immolated himself. A clear sign of poor discipline on the part of the local authorities,” he added, his eyes lingered on Meng, who would not meet his gaze. “I don’t have a lot of time. Let’s say six days.”

“I asked for help with forensics from Lhasa,” Meng began. “They won’t—”

Liang raised his hand to cut her off. “I am ever aware of your district’s failure to efficiently deal with evidence, Lieutenant. No matter how long we give you, you’ll just complete your analysis and declare there’s not enough to go on.” Liang blew twin jets of smoke from his nostrils. “The murders were committed by a Tibetan lama named Jamyang. A renegade living alone in the mountains, seeking ways to advance the splittist cause.”

Shan could not bring himself to meet Liang’s gaze. He spoke toward the ashtray at Liang’s elbow, filled with crushed butts. “The murders were not a political statement.”

“You’re wasting my time then. Lieutenant Meng said you know about the Tibetans.” The major reached behind his chair into an open briefcase and laid a stone of the table. “Tell me what it is.”

Shan clenched his jaw. He had seen the stone, pressing down on dead hands at the convent. “An old weathered rock.”

Liang repeated his words like a rifle shot. “Tell me what it is.”

“A decorative stone, probably from an old temple or shrine.”

“You truly are worthless, Meng,” Liang spat. “You would have me waste time with this—”

“A carving of a sacred sign,” Shan inserted.

Liang slowly nodded. Shan realized the major had been testing him. Liang lifted the stone, staring intensely at it now as if it were about to reveal all the dark secrets of the valley. “This murderer had a complex mind, Comrade. Starts by laying out the signs of dissent, dead men on a Chinese flag, boots on a Tibetan. The first reaction of anyone would be that it was a dissident. But then he left just enough evidence to identify the woman as a nun. Once that was known it couldn’t be a Tibetan. So we must find a lunatic Chinese killer. Except, Comrade,” Liang said, looking at Shan over the stone now, “except for this stone. He couldn’t resist the temptation, like a private little boast. The police would never see the point. Too subtle. He had to gloat, had to seek out the stone. Did you know there is an old building at the rear whose floor is covered with fragments of carved stone? He went all the way back there just to fetch his stone. Not any stone. Why this stone, Comrade Shan?”

Shan was filled with foreboding over the strange game Liang played. “It is one of the Eight Auspicious Signs.”

“Which exactly?”

Shan hesitated. “The Banner of Victory. To celebrate the triumph of Buddhist wisdom over ignorance.”

Liang offered a thin smile. He had known already, Shan was certain. He had to admit that the major at least had hit upon the conundrum of the murders. No Tibetan would ever kill the abbess. No Chinese would ever leave the banner stone.

“And except for you there’s probably not a Chinese within a hundred miles who knows that. It was a sign for Tibetans. The killer was Tibetan. You still haven’t told me about that renegade lama. This splittist Jamyang who lives like an outlaw in our mountains. The enemy of our motherland. We would have paid a rich bounty for him even before this tragedy.”

The major held his gaze on Shan. It was not an official explanation yet. Liang was testing his story. Shan returned the stare without blinking. “Jamyang is dead.”

“You speak with some confidence, Comrade.”

“He is dead.”

Liang stared at Shan for a long moment. “How convenient for him.”

“I doubt he felt that way.” Shan broke away from the grip of Liang’s eyes, and watched the headlights of a passing truck. A new warning burst into his consciousness. If Colonel Tan walked through the door at that moment, while Shan was stealing confidences from Public Security, he would be back inside one of Tan’s prisons by the end of the day.

“I want his body.”

Shan shrugged. “Bodies have a way of disappearing in this valley. They say the bodies of certain lamas get lifted on a rainbow into the heavens. These Tibetan gods work in mysterious ways.”

The fire in Liang’s eyes flared red-hot. “I already know who the gods of this valley are. Do you have to be taught that like one more stubborn Tibetan?”

Shan glanced back at Meng, who gazed uneasily into her folded hands, then out the window again, this time looking at the high ridge above the town. In his mind’s eye he could see the familiar image of Jamyang brimming with joy as he found a new patch of spring flowers. The lama would laugh to know that his death might be used to rid the valley of a man like Liang.

“There is no reason for you to miss your engagement in Rutok, Major,” Shan suggested. “The Bureau’s perpetrator is dead. Case closed. Political discord once again ends in tragedy.” It was the parable-like ending that Beijing always coveted.

Liang’s lips curled into a thin, frigid smile. He studied Shan as if trying to decide if Shan was goading him. They both knew there was another reason the major could not leave. The Jade Crows had taken two bodies. The knobs had secretly taken away the body of the third, a foreigner, but his American companion was unaccounted for. Shan clenched his jaw so as not to betray his sudden realization. Liang could deal with the murders in any number of ways. But no matter which way he chose, the American woman still posed a direct threat.

“Of course if there were loose ends because of possible conspirators.” Shan shrugged and lowered his voice. “Then you should consider going north.”

“North?”

“Any foreigner involved in this mess would know they had to flee the county, run as fast and far as possible. Everyone would expect them to head to the nearest border, to the south. Which is why if someone like that needed to get away quickly, with minimal notice, the train would be the answer,” Shan explained. “No one would expect a foreigner to flee deeper into China. The army patrols against saboteurs, but on-board security is said to be lax. There are stories of stowaways. Or someone could bluff their way right through the gate with the right paper.”

“Paper?”

“Say a big currency note and an American passport.”

Liang leaned forward. Shan had his attention.

“Getting to the station in Lhasa would be the difficult part for a foreigner. The road to Lhasa runs the length of Lhadrung County, where Colonel Tan maintains permanent security checkpoints. The only safe answer is to wait for night to slip around the roadblocks. But that adds two or three days to the trip. So a theoretical conspirator would be arriving in Golmud,” he said, referring to the northern terminus of the railway, “tomorrow night or the night after. Theoretical,” he repeated. It was tempting bait, Shan knew. The Armed Police, not the knobs, were responsible for security on the train. If a fugitive escaped there would be another government office to blame. “Of course, if there is a foreigner involved, no doubt it’s best to let them go. If someone is here illegally, there’s no need to account for them. Good riddance, right?”

Liang inhaled deeply on his cigarette, frowned, crushed out the cigarette and left the table in a cloud of smoke. As Shan watched him leave the room, a new question occurred to him. How could Liang have known Jamyang’s name?

Shan looked up to find Meng gazing at him. She touched Liang’s file. With a single finger she lifted the top flap. The passport photo on top was weak and grainy from having been faxed and scanned multiple times, but finally Shan had a face for the phantom he sought. Her thin face had high cheekbones and a strong chin. MISSING PERSON read the caption in English. Under the photo was the name Cora Michener. The notice was from the American embassy.

*   *   *

The Thousand Steps that gave the name to the nuns’ hermitage were worn and cupped from centuries of use. Shan had climbed half the long stairway before pausing, breathing heavily, to study the little complex. The old buildings clung to the steep hillside as if part of the mountain. The narrow tower and slanting walls of the outermost structure hung at the edge of a cliff, evidence that the little compound had started life as a dzong, one of the hilltop forts that had once dotted the Tibetan landscape.

He had left his truck out of sight far below so as not to frighten the nuns, and as he neared the buildings he paused at each of the little shrines erected along the final flight of steps, reciting mantras in the traditional fashion.

His prayers were to no avail. The first nun who spotted him was kneeling with a bucketful of water over some sprouting plants at the edge of the courtyard. She rose in alarm, backing away, then turned and ran around the corner of the nearest building. Shan halted, resisting the urge to follow. This was a hermitage, where nuns made vows to meditate or chanted mantras for hours every day, sometimes not breaking the cycle for weeks or months. He would not be the one to disturb such reverence. Stepping to the little garden plot, he lifted the ladle in the bucket and continued watering the plants. By the time he had finished he felt unseen eyes on him. He settled in front of the little chorten in the center of the yard, legs turned under him in the lotus fashion, then extended his right hand downward in what was known as the earth-touching mudra, a traditional hand prayer that called the earth as witness. Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement on a path higher up the slope. Several nuns were hurrying away. They were fleeing because of him.

More than a quarter of an hour passed before a middle-aged woman with hair cropped close to her scalp appeared at the base of the old tower, staring at him in cool appraisal before stepping closer.

“You are the Chinese who helped Jamyang,” she declared. Her voice was not welcoming. Another woman approached, hanging back like a retainer to the nun. Shan recognized Chenmo, the young dropka who had been raised by the abbess. Three more robed figures appeared from the tower, following uncertainly.

“I was a student at the lama’s foot,” he replied. He paused, unable to hide his surprise. The three other figures were monks.

“You are the Chinese who gloated over our abbess’s mutilated body at the ruins.”

Shan’s hand folded, losing the mudra. These were not the gentle words he had hoped for. He rose and straightened his clothes. “I was but the first to mourn her. I closed her eyes.”

“You stole her gau.”

Something inside Shan sagged. Once he had always been welcomed by nuns and monks. “Public Security likes to open such amulets. They would photograph it and catalog its contents. Often they find evidence that leads to investigation of the owner’s friends and family.”

The nun glared at him. She seemed ready to shove Shan back down the steps. The oldest of the monks, a man in his late forties, stepped forward as if to intervene. His voice was more level, almost friendly. His face was strong and intelligent. “There are stories of a white-haired uncle who wanders the upper valleys like an ancient yak. They say he has a Chinese companion.” The monk wore a pale yellow belt loosely around his robe. Hanging from it was an ornate pen case, a traditional trapping of a Tibetan teacher.

Shan offered a hesitant grin. “I have learned much from that old yak.”

“I have heard those two stand in ditches covered with mud sometimes.”

“Lokesh says cleaning ditches is purifying. He says the magic of the earth gods begins with soil and water.”

The monk turned to the nun, who still studied Shan with cool disapproval. “Surely, Mother,” the monk said, “we could all join in some tea.”

The nun moved only a single hand, a gesture to Chenmo. The young novice darted toward a door where a brazier stood and disappeared inside.

“My name is Shan,” he offered.

“I am called Trisong Norbu.”

Shan looked at him in surprise. He recognized the name. “Abbot Norbu,” he acknowledged with a slight bow of his head. What was the abbot of Chegar gompa doing at the remote hermitage?

The abbot seemed to have read Shan’s mind. “You and I may have different questions but I think perhaps we seek the same answers. The valley will never find peace again until those terrible deaths are reconciled.” Norbu gestured to a group of stools in a sunlit corner of the little courtyard, overlooking a vista of jagged ridges and slopes that blushed with flowers. The nun sat silently with them, the reluctant hostess. Another nun appeared and began spinning a heavy prayer wheel mounted on the opposite wall, warily watching as if the hermitage would need protection from Shan.

“The people of the valley say we are their anchors,” Norbu explained, “my Chegar at the head of the valley and the convent at its foot. The hermitage,” he said, correcting himself. “Our beloved abbess often reminded us that this place was but an outpost of the old convent, a station for nuns on retreat. She said it had been the convent that gave meaning to this place.”

“Which is why she was trying to make the old convent live again,” Shan said. He glanced at the two other monks, who watched their abbot like dutiful attendants. “But why now after all these years?” The question had not occurred to him before.

“She saw it as her sacred duty.” Norbu replied, nodding to Chenmo as she brought tea.

“Even though the restoration had not been approved,” Shan ventured.

The abbot paused, studying Shan, as if trying to decide if his words were a warning. He offered a small smile and gestured to his companions. “Dakpo, Trinle, and I have to deal with mountains of forms from Religious Affairs. There is no form for the requisition of hope and faith. Our valley is a special place, remote enough to keep traditions alive longer than other parts of Tibet. The government seems jealous of what we have here. With the new town, the new relocation camp, the abbess and I thought it was time for the convent to live again.”

Shan sipped his tea, weighing not just the abbot’s words but his careful tone. Serving as abbot of any monastery in Tibet was like navigating a minefield. The inhabitants of the gompa, and all the devout living nearby, expected spiritual leadership from such a man. But Beijing expected political leadership. Norbu was no doubt painfully aware that many abbots had been stripped of their rank, often their robes, for failing to kowtow to Beijing. He offered a respectful nod of his head and drained his cup.

Chenmo renewed the tea in their cups and the two men spoke as friends might, of the weather, of the lammergeiers gracefully soaring overhead, of the probable origins of the little hermitage as a fortress manned by archers.

“You speak Tibetan better than any Chinese I have ever known,” the abbot observed.

“I spent a few years living only with Tibetans,” Shan replied. “The solitary Chinese with twenty Tibetans in the same barracks.”

Norbu studied him with new interest. “In Lhadrung?”

“The Four hundred and fourth People’s Construction Brigade.”

Norbu offered a solemn nod. The man of reverence was also a man of the world. He was quiet for a long moment, sipping his tea in silence. “Life can be difficult for former Chinese convicts in Tibet,” he observed.

“Life can be difficult for a Tibetan abbot in Tibet,” Shan rejoined.

Norbu offered a gentle smile in reply.

“I had a dream,” the younger of the two attendants, Dakpo, suddenly declared. “A nightmare really. The ghosts of the abbess and Jamyang were in a deep pit, unable to rise out of it. They were blind. They were weeping, asking me to help.”

For a moment Shan saw torment in the abbot’s eyes. When Norbu spoke there was a plaintive tone in his voice. “The nuns are very scared. My monks are scared. I am without understanding of these things, of violent killings. It is not part of our world.”

“It is not part of the world we wished we had,” Shan said. “And for these deaths there is no understanding.”

“I don’t follow.”

“There are people trained to understand such things. They look for motive, for patterns, for evidence of what happened. But all hinges on motive. There could be those with motive to kill a foreigner. There could be motives to kill the leader of a criminal gang. There could be a motive even to kill an abbess. Taking each victim, the police could make a list of suspects. But the lists would all be different. There is nothing linking the three. It is like they were three different murders that just happened at the same place.”

Norbu fingered the prayer beads on his belt. “Perhaps when a demon takes over a man,” the abbot said looking at his beads with sadness in his eyes, “there is no motive, there is only the demon.” He sighed. “But that’s not how the government will see it. They will announce a motive, so they can make an arrest,” he declared, looking at Shan now.

Shan had no reply.

Dakpo shook his head back and forth. “And how can I tell Jamyang and the abbess the truth the next time they come to me?” he asked in despair. “How do I tell them they must wander blind and frightened forever?”

The abbot hung his head a moment. “I want to weep,” he said in Chinese, as if the words were only for Shan, “but I am the abbot.” He opened his mouth again after a moment, then just shook his head, as if speaking had become too great a burden, and took up his beads with a whispered mantra.

Shan rose and paced along the courtyard, surveying the high slopes again. A demon was loose and Lokesh was unprotected. The knobs were seeking the American woman and Shan’s misdirection to Liang would only buy her another day or two. When the major turned his attention back to the valley he would be releasing his hungriest dogs.

He turned to see the abbot speaking in soft tones with Chenmo. Norbu touched his gau, as if offering the woman a blessing, then nodded a farewell to Shan, and with Dakpo and Trinle at his side slowly descended the steep stairs that led down from the hermitage. A great weight seemed to have settled on his shoulders.

Chenmo too had noticed. “He has become a man much loved in this valley since he arrived last year,” she said, the worry deep in her voice. “He brought with him a silver dragon bell that had belonged to the monastery for centuries, until it was taken by the government. He persuaded some museum to return it to its true owners. He speaks up when the government pushes too hard, even though he knows the last abbot was sent to prison. He is very troubled by what happened to the abbess, worries the government will use it as an excuse to put more Tibetans in prison. He stays up far into the night praying for her, praying for justice. A man like that is important to this valley if it is to survive. But there is more and more talk about how he might be arrested. If the government’s anger builds to a storm he will be the lightning rod.” The novice continued to stare down the stairs as the robes of the abbot and his attendants faded into in the shadows.

“The American woman is in great danger,” Shan said in a low voice. “She has to be warned. She has to be hidden.”

“She is not here,” Chenmo replied. “She—”

“Enough!” The stern nun who had greeted him emerged from the shadows, motioning Chenmo toward the tower. The novice swept past Shan with her head down, but not before a long glance toward the slope above the compound, at one of the small stone huts that were used by hermits and those on retreat. The nun stepped between Shan and the tower as though to block any attempt to follow the novice.

“They will come looking for the American,” Shan declared to the nun. “They will interrogate. They will search, search very roughly. Is everyone here registered? Do you have documentation that they have all taken loyalty oaths?

“Spoken like a true patriot of Beijing.”

“Spoken like one who wishes no more suffering on the nuns of Thousand Steps,” Shan shot back. “The knobs probably already know that the abbess was coordinating the restoration at the convent. They know about the foreigners. It will not seem possible to them that the foreigners would be secretly visiting the convent ruins without the abbess knowing.”

“I cannot say what knowledge the abbess took to her grave.”

“I lived in a hermitage once, Abbess. There were no secrets among the monks. It was like one family.”

“I carry no whisk,” the nun corrected him, referring to the yak tail whisk that was the traditional sign of office for abbots and abbesses. “The new abbess, Ani Ama, was called away. While she is gone I have responsibility for the others.” The nun grew quiet as a dozen others emerged from various buildings and moved into a small building with prayer wheels flanking its door. A nun appeared on the tower and began ringing a handbell.

“If they come,” she asked in a whisper, “what will happen?”

“They will separate everyone. Each will be interrogated. The knobs will seek to divide everyone, turn each against the other. First will be those who don’t present documentation of their loyalty oaths. If you haven’t signed an oath, you do not respect Beijing. A Tibetan who doesn’t respect Beijing is a splittist. A splittist is a traitor. Traitors have no rights. Imprisonment is the usual punishment, with no right to be registered as a nun ever again. But you can avoid the punishment if you just speak about the subversive activities of the abbess or the names of the traitors who hid the American woman.

“If that doesn’t work then they will begin speaking of those among you from bad families, merchants and landowners, whose files can always be reopened by political officers. When all else fails they will find out who harbors secret photos of the Dalai Lama and prosecute them. These are unsettled times in Tibet. Local law enforcement officers had been given great discretion to inflict punishment. They have but to chant the words ‘Dalai Lama splittist’ and they can destroy your life. If the knobs so choose they could arrive here in the morning and by noon everyone here will be gone, never to see one another again.”

Desolation clouded the woman’s face but was slowly replaced with defiance. She was, Shan could tell, a Khampa, from the old Tibetan province of Kham, where men and women alike had once been fierce warriors. “If they come,” she said.

“There is no if, Mother,” Shan shot back. “Only when.”

“But you did not come to warn us away.”

Shan looked out over the mountains again. He was not at all certain that the path he was trying to find would bring any less pain to the nuns. “The only way to change the course of things is to find the truth.”

“We know about Chinese and their truths. We have fifty years of suffering to show for it.”

“I had a teacher when I was in prison. A lama who had helped train the Dalai Lama when he was a boy. He said the reason Tibetans remained free in their hearts was because they knew that truth was more powerful than any law, any prison, any army.” The heat in the nun’s eyes began to fade. “Why,” Shan abruptly asked, “would the abbess be in the company of a Chinese gang leader?”

The nun was looking into her folded hands now, confusion on her face. “I have to lead the prayers,” she said, then turned and hurried to the chapel.

Shan followed her and settled onto folded legs near the rear wall of the little chamber. The only light came from the open door and the butter lamps that flickered on the altar below a small bronze Buddha. As the mantras began Shan closed his eyes and tried to push away his nagging fears. The soft chorus of the nuns was a salve to his aching spirit. He found himself beginning to mouth the familiar words, then joined his voice with the others.

He did not move as the nuns filed out, but searched their anxious faces. None of them looked at him. Only the senior nun stayed in the chapel, rising to go to the altar where she added more incense to the censers before turning to him.

“A few months ago some Chinese started appearing at the remote camps and farms, the ones high on the slopes,” she suddenly declared, “hitting people with sticks, breaking their tools, stealing whatever they wanted, sometimes burning feed saved for the livestock. It wasn’t so much like they were looting, for those people had little of value. More like they were trying to scare people away. They always left a black feather. Chinese, but not in uniform. Shorter and darker than most of those in that Pioneer town. When we heard they had tattoos we thought they must be escapees from prison. The abbess first went to one of the Tibetan constables to report it. The constable said he could do nothing, that it was a matter for those Armed Police.”

“You mean the Chinese gang from Baiyun was raiding the farmhouses.”

“You heard Abbot Norbu. For centuries the convent and Chegar gompa were the two anchors of the valley, one at each end, assuring its tranquility. It was always the duty of the abbot and the abbess to know of the troubles of the people, and to find ways to ease them. After the convent was destroyed the few nuns who survived came here, and the head of the hermitage became the abbess. We are responsible for the people of the valley. If a farmer’s family takes sick in the autumn, we nuns will go and take in the barley for them.”

“And so she arranged a meeting with the head of the gang. Lung Ma.”

“She just went to that old farm of theirs, with the oldest of our nuns, Ani Ama. The abbess just pushed open the door and went upstairs to see their leader. Ani Ama said his men laughed but not him. He seemed disturbed to see her. He just listened as she berated him and demanded he leave our people alone. Some of his men pulled out knives, but he spoke sharp words and they lowered the weapons.”

“You mean just before she was murdered?”

“No. Many weeks ago. Two or three months. Then last month he came for her. All the way up the stairs, gasping for breath when he reached the top.”

“To go with her to the convent.”

“No. That was later. He came because of his dead son.”

Shan looked up in surprise. “The son of the gang chief died?”

The nun nodded. “A driving accident. He wanted her to prepare the body in the old way.”

“The Jade Crows had threatened her with knives and she still went?”

“Of course she did. It was for the dead boy. His father was a different man, very shaken. Afterwards all those raids stopped.”

Shan considered her words. “So she followed him home that once,” he said, “and he followed her again later to the convent where they both died.”

The nun shook her head. “You misunderstand. She did not go to the convent for Lung, or Lung for her. They went because of Jamyang. Jamyang told her a demon had crawled out of the earth and had to be destroyed.”