Prayer of the Dragon (12 page)

“I am called Shan,” he continued in Chinese, pointing to himself.

“Ni . . . hao,” the stranger offered in a slow, uncertain voice, then switched to his strange tongue. “Hostene,” he said, pushing a thumb toward his chin. Dolma busied herself at the little churn and soon handed the stranger a cup of buttered tea, which he eagerly raised to his lips and tilted down his throat. A moment later he gagged, coughed, and set the cup down, holding his belly. This Tibetan who spoke the ancient Tibetan tongue was not familiar with the traditional Tibetan drink.

Shan studied the bench where Dolma had churned the tea, then chipped off a corner of the brick of black tea she had used, dropped it into another cup, and filled it from the kettle without adding butter or salt. He extended the cup to the man, who hesitantly accepted it, sniffed the contents, and tested it with a cautious sip.

“A’hayhee,”
the man said. The gratitude in his tone needed no translation. He drained the cup, then became aware of Gendun’s eyes fixed on him. The lama, Shan saw, was seized with intense curiosity, a mix of confusion and fascination. The stranger awkwardly pressed his palms together, fingers extended, the traditional offering of respect.

Gendun cocked his head first to one side then the other. “If the gods are trying to take us to a new place,” he said in a quizzical, excited tone, “why would they use our old words?”

Shan watched in mute confusion as the lama reached inside his sleeve and produced the stub of a pencil. On one of the smooth planks leaning against the wall he drew something, then set it in front of the stranger. Surprisingly, it was a fish. Not any fish, but the traditional image of the leaping golden fish, representing spiritual liberation, one of the Eight Auspicious Signs sacred to the Tibetans.

The stranger rubbed his head a moment, gazing uncertainly at his companions, then accepted the pencil offered by Gendun and ran his fingertip over the image in the same way Lokesh did with unfamiliar images. The silence was that of a teaching, when novices waited for the slow word of an old lama. At last he lifted the pencil and drew an object opposite the fish on the plank, something that might have been a stalk of corn.

Gendun ran his own fingertips over the new image, then drew another of the sacred symbols. A lotus flower, sign of purity. The stranger made another. A bundle of arrows.

A sigh of wonder escaped Lokesh’s lips. Gendun sketched still another of the eight sacred signs. A treasure vase, repository of the jewels of enlightenment. The stranger sketched. A rainbow. Gendun drew again. A wheel of dharma. With a somber gaze the stranger once more bent over the plank. When he had finished Shan saw Lokesh’s eyes grow round. The man had drawn the zigzag snake, the thunderbolt serpent that they had seen drawn in blood. “The gods are making a proposal,” the old Tibetan exclaimed, then his face sagged. “But I don’t know what it is.”

As his friends bent over the sketch, Shan stepped to a corner, where sunlight leaked through cracks in the plank wall. He pulled from his belt the pouch given him by the fleeing miner, kneeled, and extracted the brown plastic jars, realizing he had not opened the one he had assumed to be empty. He had been wrong. It was filled with small colorful feathers. He unscrewed the container with the medicine. It contained two types of pills, neither of them the small white tablets strangers often brought to Tibet for altitude sickness. He discovered a slip of paper tucked so tightly around the inside of the jar that he had not noticed it on his first examination. With a finger he pried at it, discovering there were in fact two slips, both drug prescriptions. One was for methotrexate, the other for leucov-orin calcium. Along the top of each slip ran a legend in ornate silver letters. Monument Pharmacy, Shiprock, New Mexico.

For several minutes Shan continued to watch the silent, energetic exchange between his two Tibetan friends and the stranger, his mind racing. The riddles of Sleeping Dragon Mountain never generated answers, only more riddles. Finally he poured another cup of black tea and squatted by the trio.

Shan said in English as he extended the cup to the man, “I hear there are more Tibetan scholars in America than in China.”

At the sound of the English words the stranger’s jaw dropped. His reply came out in a dry and cracked voice, but it was understandable. “I have never met a Tibetan who spoke English.”

“I am Chinese,” Shan said, returning the man’s grin.

“I am called Hostene, Hostene Natay.” The man looked about, studying each of them in turn. “I guess you saved my life.”

“Lha gyal lo,” Lokesh whispered, the words echoed by Dolma a moment later. Gendun, his hand pressed to his side as if he was in pain, offered a serene smile, then gazed at the plank with the drawings.

They spoke rapidly for a quarter hour, Shan pausing to translate for his friends until Hostene discovered both Gendun and Lokesh spoke Chinese. In slow, clumsy Mandarin, with many apologies for not having kept it polished since learning it in the US Army many years earlier, he explained that he was a retired judge from New Mexico in the southwestern United States. Lokesh gave Shan no chance to ask Hostene about the murders, instead peppering him with questions about the stick figure, the lightning bolts, and the dialogue in symbols he had carried on with Gendun.

“It is why we are here,” Hostene explained. “To unlock the links between the Tibetans and my people.”

“Your people?” Shan asked.

“The Dine. The Navajo.”

Shan had a vague recollection of the term. “You mean Native Americans?”

“There are many names for the tribes that first inhabited North America. First Nations. Original Peoples.” Hostene pressed his hand to his temple. “The people to whom the gods entrusted the continent.” His wry tone did little to conceal his obvious pain. “My tribe is the Navajo.”

He closed his eyes a moment. “I don’t remember how I got here. I was sleeping. Someone walked through the trees and stepped on a branch. I rolled over and something hit me on the head.”

Shan asked, dreading the answer, “Who else was with you?”

“A retired professor from Beijing, Professor Ma Hopeng, and a young Tibetan guide. We met in Chamdo.” Hostene paused, looking toward the door with anxious eyes. “Where are they?” he asked urgently. “I must see them.”

Shan and Lokesh exchanged a glance.

Hostene struggled to rise, then slumped forward. He seemed to be losing consciousness again. “The boy is covered in blood!” he groaned. “Warn her, up on the mountain!” His eyelids fluttered and shut, and he dropped back onto the pallet.

“The mountain deity,” Lokesh concluded. “He wants to warn the mountain deity.”

As they rolled him onto his back, Hostene came to life again, resisting their efforts, trying to get to his feet. He was perhaps fifteen years older than Shan but, at least for the moment, seemed to have the strength of a man in his prime.

“They are beyond our help,” Shan told him. “There are words you might wish to say for them. Gendun has been offering prayers for them.”

Hostene looked at Shan, seeking comprehension. Shan caught him as he sagged and lowered him back to the pallet.

“Something happened that night,” Shan said. “You were found covered with blood, sitting against a rock. You are the only survivor.”

Hostene lowered his head into his hands. No one spoke. Dolma lit another stick of incense.

“I was in my sleeping bag,” the Navajo finally whispered. “The sun had not yet risen. I turned and . . . that’s all I can recall. Who?” he asked. “Why?”

“We don’t know,” Shan admitted.

“The police?”

“No government reaches here.”

Time passed. “She said she was going to close the circle between two peoples,” Hostene finally said in a grief-stricken voice. “She was so excited about her discoveries. So full of life. I used to say she was like one of the wild mustangs we sometimes glimpsed in the arroyos.”

Shan could not make sense of the Navajo’s words.

When Hostene looked up, tears were streaming down his cheeks. “What will I tell my sister when I see her in the night?”

“Your sister?”

“Abigail was my niece. Her friends begged her not to try this, not to come so far. I told her that if she insisted I would accompany her, to watch over her. And now I’ve let her be killed.”

“But only two bodies were found,” Shan said in confusion. “Neither was that of a woman.”

Hostene grabbed Shan’s wrist. “Abigail! Where is she then?” He had realized that his niece might be alive, alone on the mountain where a murderer was at large.

The door opened. Shan crossed the floor an instant too late. The guard took one look at Hostene, gasped, and with a swift, panicked motion tapped the side of the Navajo’s head with his club. Hostene collapsed to the floor.

* * *

“GASOLINE.” IT WAS Chodron’s only greeting when he finally opened his back door to Shan an hour after dawn the next day. The headman, wearing a sleeping robe, handed Shan an empty gas can and pointed to a small lean-to shed built against the house. Inside the shed was a barrel with a hand pump screwed into the top.

Hostene’s scalp had been cut open by the guard’s club. He had drifted in and out of consciousness most of the night, nursed by Dolma and by Lokesh, who mixed healing teas from the little bag of herbs he kept on his belt. At times Hostene seemed to have the same ageless vitality as his two Tibetan friends, at others his body was as weak as an infant’s.

“He may die,” Shan said as he handed the filled gas can to Chodron, who now wore a blue dress shirt and black trousers, as if he were attending a Party meeting.

Chodron passed Shan and went to an object at the foot of the wall. Tossing off the felt blanket that covered it, he revealed a small generator, connected to wires that led into the house. Shan gazed at three villagers who stood silently at the garden wall. They winced as the generator sputtered and sprang to life with a low hum.

The headman seemed to expect Shan to follow him through the inner door. Chodron gestured him toward a chair in front of the table that served as his desk. He did not offer Shan the black tea that he poured from a porcelain pot into a tall mug.

“I remember going to the circus as a boy,” Shan recounted after a long pause, “and exclaiming to my father that the most amazing men alive must be the jugglers. He said, “Look closely. None of the jugglers are old because eventually they begin dropping pins. Then no one remembers all the great magic they once made, only the dropped pins.”

“I have no time for your idle banter. Yesterday you proved I cannot trust you up on the mountain. I want you to write out your explanation for the murders. Today.” Chodron flipped on the switch of a gooseneck lamp and began sifting through papers.

“It may become difficult for you to keep control of both the villagers and the miners,” said Shan. “Perhaps you only need show your authority to rule the particular type of villagers bred in Drango. But you’ll have to produce value for the miners.”

“It is well documented that former hard-labor prisoners suffer from a variety of mental ailments.”

“There is only one plausible explanation as to why the miners remain undisturbed by the government. You protect them. In most years such a service must be quite valuable, considering all the taxes and regulations they avoid.”

“You haven’t got a shred of evidence. You are playing with your life, prisoner.”

“With such a difficult juggling act to perform perhaps you have not had time to catch up on Chinese history,” Shan continued. “A pity, as you would soon learn that for centuries the most serious crime in China has been corruption. Murderers simply had their heads cut off. Sometimes they might even be allowed to buy their freedom. But those who stole from the emperor were always condemned to death by a thousand slices. Sometimes the criminals were paraded around entire counties and at each town pieces were removed from their bodies. Today, entire offices of the Public Security Bureau are dedicated to searching out corruption. It is such a problem that every lead is energetically followed. The PSB compiles the proof. They only need someone to point them in the right direction.”

Chodron sipped his tea, looking bored.

“You lost a miner yesterday,” Shan continued. “He followed a different trail down. It was longer than the regular trail but it kept him out of view of Drango village. He said to tell you he left your tribute on the trail. Still steaming, courtesy of his mule.”

The grin that had begun to form on Chodron’s face slowly faded and was replaced by a resentful glare.

“Why should the miners keep paying you tribute if you can’t stop a murderer?”

Chodron set down his tea and picked up a pamphlet on his desk. “This begins to sound like a negotiation,” the headman grunted.

“I want the stranger freed to go up the mountain with me. I want Yangke freed of his collar and allowed openly to assist me.”

“Impossible.”

“You fail to appreciate that your survival depends upon a delicate balance. You are not the only one who can call in troops.”

“You wouldn’t dare. You’d be back in prison in six hours. It would be my word against a felon’s.”

“I meant Dr. Gao. The true king of the mountain.”

Chodron grew very still.