"It's a long way from anywhere," Shan observed.
"They have a radio," Hoof said, "to listen to music." He shrugged. "Mostly it doesn't work."
Jakli rose to push a stick into the fire. Shan saw that Hoof tensed his muscles as she moved, as if he thought she would hit him.
"Seems like a long time ago, when we were at Karachuk," Shan said.
"Seems like," Hoof agreed with a sigh, then he looked up and spoke hurriedly. "I came here straight away, like Marco said."
"We're not here for Marco."
The announcement seemed to confuse Hoof. His brow furrowed and he stared into the fire. He muttered a syllable Shan did not understand, and one of the mastiffs came and sat by him, watching Shan and Jakli.
"Xinjiang, it's a hard place," Shan said with a sigh. "People have to do a lot of things they don't want to do. If we had a choice we wouldn't do things that hurt other people."
"When I was young," Hoof said in a nervous, high-pitched voice, "my father had a herd of sheep. But the government took them away, they said no one could have private property. Now you can have private property but I don't have my sheep. Someone else has them. I looked for my sheep, in the market, but couldn't see them anywhere." His voice had a slow, confused quality to it. He was not the same insolent man Shan had seen at Karachuk. "I asked a Chinese in the city. He laughed, and said probably they were sent to Beijing to feed the Chairman."
An owl called.
"My mother died last year but she lived in Tadjikstan," he said morosely, referring to the independent Tadjik homeland. "They wouldn't give me papers to go bury her."
Papers. Hoof meant travel papers, to go over the border. "You mean, you went out with Marco."
"My brother did. Not with Marco," the Tadjik said with a glance to Jakli. "Little Marco. I offered to pay for him to go, but Little Marco paid him, because he was so good with the animals."
"Nikki," Jakli said, in a hushed, emotional tone. She glanced at Shan with a smile.
"Right," Hoof said. "Nikki." He looked at Jakli and cocked his head, as if remembering something. "He paid my brother to go on more caravans. I like that Nikki. He laughs good."
Jakli smiled again and stroked the head of Hoof's dog.
"But someone asked you about it later," Shan said. "Someone in a uniform." If Hoof had been stealing information about Americans from Karachuk, it must have been for Bao.
"Not a uniform," Hoof shot back, as though anxious to correct him. "I mean not at first. I wouldn't have done it if I had known who he was on that first day. I thought he was a merchant, looking for Western goods. I was in the market in Yoktian. He just wanted to know about getting out, about the safe way for some friends of his to go across. He gave me drinks. We walked around the market. He gave me new shoes, just because I saw them and liked them. Said maybe if we became good friends, he could get me some sheep. Even get me a job. I never had a Han friend. I thought maybe I should have one. I think you have to have one," he said, looking to Shan as though for confirmation, "if you want to be successful in our world." Shan remembered when they had first met, how Hoof had boasted that he had Chinese friends in order to impress Shan.
"Maybe later you found out he was a knob in disguise," Shan ventured.
"A big one," Hoof nodded with a haunted expression. "An officer. I didn't know until later, when he wore his uniform once to meet me on the highway."
"Bao Kangmei?" Shan asked.
Hoof looked up with surprise. "Not that bastard. The other one. The thin one with the bad skin."
Sui. Hoof meant he had been recruited by Sui.
Hoof looked into the fire. "I had known a knob once before. He owned a gas station, after ownership was allowed. He ordered all the knob cars to come for gas."
"Later, though," Shan suggested, "this officer wanted other things. To know about Lau and people close to Lau. About foreigners."
Hoof shrugged. "He said he was going to leave the knobs, go into business. Business, it's international. Sure, he needed to meet foreigners. Americans especially. He really wanted to see Americans and things Americans did. I gave him an empty can of American soda once from Karachuk and he paid me more money than I can make in a month herding sheep. An empty can," the Tadjik repeated incredulously.
The sheep were all asleep, around the edge of the camp, a soft grey carpet under the moon. Beyond them one of the mastiffs sat upright on a rock, facing the darkness beyond.
"So you took him some more things from the Americans."
"Not much. You stopped me."
"But then you left Karachuk. The same night. You were planning to leave anyway, when Marco sent you here. You were planning to meet your friend from the knobs," Shan suggested.
Hoof nodded. "There were two of them there. The knob and another, who wore dark glasses even though it was after sunset. They were sitting in a red car waiting for me, drinking beer. The one with the glasses took me for a ride in the car while the knob sat on a rock and drank. As he drives he says he could help me. Says he was going to be my new friend, and he gave me money, for nothing. He asked me what I wanted most. I said sheep, and he said no problem." Hoof looked up at Shan. "If he can get some sheep for me, my brother and I can start our own camp in the spring. My brother needs to meet my new friend. Don't work for the knobs, I told him. They don't pay you as much."
It seemed to have gotten much colder. Hoof was working for the Brigade now. Shan moved closer to the fire. "So that night when you left," he pressed. "You saw both of them. Your friend who drives the red truck. Near the highway. Late."
"My new friend said he didn't have much time. But he said he wanted me to watch something. Said here's what happens to people who try to take away your business. The knob with the bad skin, he was just standing there smiling, like it was all a joke when the gun was pointed at him. But bang, the one with the red car just pulled the trigger. In the heart, two times. I ran. I came here, because Marco had said so."
Shan looked into the burning embers. Hoof had been a witness, he had seen Ko Yonghong shoot the man with the pockmarked face, Lieutenant Sui. Then Hoof had disappeared, making Ko nervous. He wanted Hoof. But so did Bao. With Hoof on his side, Bao could destroy Ko. But how had Bao found out?
Suddenly the dog leapt up and began barking toward the darkness on the north side of the camp. Jakli groaned and pointed. In the distance, on the horizon, two streaks of brilliant white light lit the sky.
"Flares," Hoof muttered. "We see a lot of them lately."
"Flares?" Shan asked. "From who?"
"The knobs. They like to search at night sometimes, catch people off guard."
As Shan looked at the fading streaks in the sky he remembered the dropka woman's words, how the demon had stopped attacking Alta because he was called away by lightning. It was how demons spoke with each other, she had said. She was right, he thought sadly. It was how demons spoke with each other. But if Alta's killer had been called back by Sui, if he had been working for Sui, why curse him when he saw the flares? Because he had not finished his work with the boy perhaps. Because the boy had still been alive.
They were silent a long time, watching the darkness where the flares had been.
"Before you came here," Shan suggested at last, "you saw your brother, didn't you?"
"On the way here. I said I'd be gone for a long time, to a secret place. But I wanted to tell him about my new business, about how we can get sheep. Good money, when I get done here," Hoof said. "Just cooperate, I told my brother, or you'll be like that dead Chinese."
But Bao, Shan realized with a sinking feeling, was already in business with Hoof's brother. Don't work for the knobs, Hoof had told him. They're not paying as well. That was how Bao had discovered that Ko was Sui's killer. That was how Bao had obtained a shiny new car from Ko, by divulging to Ko what he had heard about Sui's murder. Bao was learning about the new economy. Ko had killed Sui, but now Ko had a new competitor. And if Bao could find Hoof, if he could produce the witness to Sui's murder, he would have the means to destroy Ko, to take over all of Ko's lucrative bounty hunting.
Hoof sighed. "It's a hard thing, business," he said, his eyes lingering for a moment on Jakli, as if he had something to say to her. But he turned away, and after a moment spoke to the fire. "I only wanted to bury my mother."
* * *
In the morning Jakli was gone. She had said nothing, left no word other than to tell their guide that she would see Shan at the nadam. Everyone knew Jakli would go to the nadam, the Kazakh girl said with a flush of excitement, because her wedding was to be the main event of the festival. But not everyone knew that from there she would leave, from there she would start her new life.
And beginnings were always built on endings, a lama had once told Shan.
Shan described a place with a high cliff, with a meadow across the road, and asked if the girl could take him there. "Not far," she said, "maybe two hours." They rode hard until they reached the road, then walked the horses along the road until they found the spot where Jakli had left the flowers the day she had driven him to Senge Drak.
He thanked the girl, then found a trail that led up the high ridge and in half an hour he emerged on a small shelf of land that overlooked the road. He dismounted and tied his horse to a tree.
She was there, kneeling at a low, broad mound of earth on which autumn asters were blooming. He plucked a piece of reddish heather and dropped it on the mound beside her.
Jakli smiled through her tears. "The great detective," she said in greeting.
"I was worried about you."
"With you and Marco both watching over me, how could anything go wrong?" she asked, and began pulling away dried leaves that were caught among the flowers. "My great uncle who was the synshy, the horse talker, he said that horses have spirits that roam after death. That they may settle in another horse, far away."
Shan understood. "Even as far as America," he suggested.
Jakli nodded and continued clearing the grave of her horse, the horse that had been killed by the soldiers so many years before. There was no one else for her, no other way of saying goodbye. Her father had disappeared, her clan was leaving. This was her way of ending it, of leaving her old life behind.
"My uncle, the synshy, he rode a stallion until he was almost ninety, the horse almost thirty-five. When his horse died, he insisted on burying it himself, by himself. He dug for two days, a huge hole, beside the body, like I did here, to let the body slide in. But at the last moment the earth crumbled and the horse fell on top of him. It killed him. My aunt said to leave him there, it was the right thing for them to be in the same grave. At the funeral my father said that Zhylkhyshy Ata, the horse deity, had called my uncle away to work with his herd in the heavens."
When Shan looked, Jakli's eyes were full not of grief but of doubt. "I feel like I am just abandoning them all. Like I'm only thinking of myself."
"Red Stone clan is leaving too."
"I mean, all the Kazakhs. I mean the Maos and the purbas. Look at all the Americans have sacrificed to come here and help, and it feels like I'm doing the opposite."
"You're not running away," Shan said, but Jakli offered no reply. He knelt and helped her clear off the grave.
She thanked him when they were through and asked him to leave. He did, but only when she promised to go see her new wedding dress. "Only if you promise to be there," she said, playfulness back in her eyes. "Go to town. Find Ox Mao, he will take you to nadam, he's a good Kazakh."
"I can't. I must speak with the boys about Micah. We must find him, make sure he's safe."
"He is safe. If his dropka family is hiding, no knob will ever find him. And Marco," she added, more soberly, "Marco will be at nadam with Lokesh and your lama. Or he will know where we must go with the Maos to rescue them."
* * *
Shan found the big-boned Kazakh at the restaurant in town but did not immediately ask him to guide him to the horse festival. He had the Mao draw him a map and began walking toward the outskirts of town, staying in the shadows, wary of boot squads, ducking into doorways sometimes when the wind whipped sand against his cheek so hard it stung.
The People's Clinic of Yoktian was a shabby one-story building with a corrugated tin roof and mud-brick walls, marked by a truck near its front door that bore the weathered emblems of an ambulance. The truck appeared to have been abandoned. Its tires were flat, its sides corroded and rusted. A young girl in the front, playing with the steering wheel, ducked down as Shan walked by.
Inside, his first impression was that the clinic itself had been abandoned. Sand blew across the lobby as he entered, and a skinny dog looked up from where it lay in the center of the floor, then returned to its nap. Corridors ran to the left and right, the one on the left protected by a set of double doors with rubber seals.
