"Important that they are in the world," Shan suggested. As he spoke he saw a movement in the shadows at the back of the tent. The wild-eyed woman was there, the one who had thrown stones at him. She was rocking back and forth, a rolled blanket in her arms, giving no sign of having seen them.
As Marco rose, Shan saw Jowa standing at the tent flap. What was it Jowa had said that night so long ago? If the lamas didn't survive, what was the point of continuing? The thought brought a pang of pain, as it reminded him that there was another lama still out there, unprotected, with the knobs now at Glory Camp.
It was a day of celebration, a day of joy. The clans flowed in a steady stream into Red Stone camp to see the gifts brought for the bride's family and to present gifts of their own. They drank toasts to Nikki, the jokester who could be counted on to be late, just for effect. Horses were raced, in pairs and in fours, and even as many as twenty at a time, and skins of kumiss were passed about the jubilant onlookers.
After the races Batu pulled Deacon out onto the field. Another of the zheli threw a ball to the American, a baseball. Macro appeared with a bat, one he had brought from Nikki's room, and the youths of the camp began playing the American game. Jakli appeared and, making an exaggerated bow of greeting to Shan, ran to join the game, chiding everyone about how Nikki would hit balls into the mountains when he arrived. Deacon and Marco had declared themselves coaches, and the air was filled with laughter and shouts of "First base! Second base! She's out!" as Shan leaned back on the log, drowsy in the sunlight studying the game. Half the camp wandered to the field to watch, until suddenly there was a shout from the back, then a hushed silence. The crowd parted as a magnificent white horse pranced onto the field, led by Wangtu, the Kazakh driver Shan had talked with at Glory Camp.
Jakli was pushed forward by Marco, and with a shy smile Wangtu handed her the lead rope of the white horse. "I know when Nikki comes," he said loudly, so the crowd could hear, "he will bring five more like this. But," he said with a shrug, "at least I'm first."
The horse, Shan was certain, was the one they had seen at the rice camp. The fiery creature looked at Jakli and its eyes softened, then it stepped forward and she extended a hand. As it pushed its muzzle into her palm, the Kazakhs cheered. Malik shot away and a moment later returned with the silver bridle.
For the next hour many from the camps watched as Jakli raced up and down the field on her white horse, while others mounted and rode alongside her. At last she consented to a game of khez khuwar, and though many youths galloped forward for a kiss, none could catch her.
Shan found Malik under a tree at the north end of the field, sitting with one of the dogs resting its head on his legs. He sat without speaking, and they watched the riders in silence.
"I keep thinking about that day you found him," Shan said at last. "I keep thinking, what if there was something else? Something Malik decided to keep, something he didn't put back on the grave? That would be a sad thing, because Malik would start feeling he had done wrong, even though it was because he just wanted a remembrance of Khitai, and his memory of his friend might have a cloud over it."
"So many things have happened," Malik said, his eyes on the dog. "It's hard to understand." He sighed, and pain clouded his face. "I only wanted something because we were friends. I have almost never had friends. I mean just another boy. He was so gentle with the lambs." Malik unbuttoned the top of his shirt and removed the object that hung around his neck. A large silver gau, with a top of woven filigree.
"I didn't lie to you," the boy said. "You asked did he have anything on him. This was in the dirt, thrown by the rocks. I never looked inside," he added, then he handed it to Shan, rose with a small smile, as if glad to be free of the object, and walked with the dog toward the lake.
Shan took it to Lokesh, who now sat upright, watching the sleeping form of Gendun. The old Tibetan studied the gau reverently without opening it, but shook his head and handed it back. It was not the Jade Basket.
"Khitai might keep the Basket in a special place sometimes, to protect it," Lokesh said, then he grimaced and looked up at Shan. "That's why he gave it to the American boy, isn't it? To protect it."
Shan nodded. There was no other possibility now. Prosecutor Xu had been the one to confirm it. Two clans had been at the zheli field, two zheli friends, meeting in the lama field, to look for flowers. Khitai, sensing the danger and knowing the importance of the gau, had passed on the Jade Basket for safekeeping. Just for a few days, he probably told Micah, for they would be together soon, on the way to America.
Lokesh's head turned and twisted in several directions as he looked at the gau in Shan's hand, as if he had to get a precise angle on the mystery. "That last boy, the American boy, he has the sacred Basket," he said, as though needing to persuade himself.
And by now the killer knows it, Shan almost added. He remembered the flares in the mountains. Bao's patrols were out, still searching. Akzu had been wrong about one thing. Micah wasn't safe, or at least would not be when he left the mountains to go to Stone Lake.
Lokesh looked up, his eyes clouded. "How do these things happen?" he asked, and he seemed about to cry. Fires were lit as the sun went down, and still representatives of the other clans arrived at the Red Stone camp, bringing skins of kumiss to drink by the fire. They ate mutton stew and hard cheese, singing songs, some of the old women dancing ritual dances that none of the young generation knew. Marco and Deacon freely drank the fermented milk and taught each other new songs. Inside one tent Shan found Ox Mao with the slender woman, Swallow Mao, who held one of the small computers on her lap. She acknowledged Shan with a nod and kept busily tapping the keys as he sat nearby.
"That newborn program," she announced. "I downloaded files from the Brigade onto a disc. It's not just local, but all over southern Xinjiang. Not administered by Ko. It's higher up than Ko. Two hundred babies registered so far, with detailed notes on all birthmarks. Some parents are being asked to take examinations."
"Examinations?" Shan asked.
Ox Mao grunted angrily. "Administered by political officers," he whispered, as though speaking the words more loudly would violate the sanctity of the festival.
The moon was high overhead when sentries came down from the hills and new ones rode out. "Don't shoot anyone who's bringing white horses," Marco called after them, and everyone laughed. Jakli excused herself to go to the sleeping tent but as Shan watched from the fire she slipped around the yurt and sat in the moonlight by her new horse, who nuzzled her and made soft wickering sounds, sounds of contentment. A piece of paper was in her hand, and somehow Shan knew what it was. The letter she always carried, almost in tatters from being so often folded and unfolded. A letter from her Nikki.
Thunder woke them in the dawn, followed by shouts, then jubilation. Every Kazakh in the tent seemed to recognize the rumbling sound and rushed outside, leaving Deacon and Shan and the Tibetans alone, sitting up in their blankets, rubbing their eyes.
It was horses, scores of horses galloping through the camp, more horses than Shan had ever seen. Or maybe not, as he listened to the cries of the clans. He had seen them in Yoktian. The Kazakh herds had been freed. The gates at Yoktian had been opened despite the guards, and the animals had come home.
The excitement was palpable. Children leapt in the air. Dogs yelped. Guns were fired in the air. Everywhere people were embracing each other. The Brigade had not won after all, people were saying. It was Zhylkhyshy Ata, someone shouted, the horse deity had not forgotten the southern Kazakhs.
"This day will be written in the history of our people," an old woman called out, and her eyes flashed with the excitement of a young girl.
The celebration in the camp lasted through the morning. Shan was watching the zheli boys, who shone with delight as they walked through the herd, when Gendun touched his arm and pointed up the hill. Lokesh was waving at them from a large rock on the slope above the camp. When they arrived, he pointed excitedly to a beautiful circular pattern of lichen growing on a rock face above where he sat. It was a mandala, a mandala made by the deity who lived in the mountain.
The two Tibetans sat to contemplate the lichen rock as Shan found a perch on a boulder near the bottom of the ridge. He watched Jakli on her white horse, spontaneously laughing as she rode back and forth on the valley track below him, then took out the piece of paper he had taken from the body at Glory Camp. He stared at the strange abbreviations again, trying to make sense of their odd code.
He was leaning back on the rock in the sun when someone spoke his name.
"There is a feast tonight," Jakli said in an oddly shy tone. He looked up and saw the white horse tethered to a tree at the base of the ridge. "I would like you to sit with my family."
Shan nodded. "You honor me."
"It's not over, is it?" she asked after a moment, kneeling beside him.
"The general is coming," Shan said. "The killer is still free. The last boy is still unprotected. The Americans—" He stopped, seeing the anxious look in her eyes. She had felt guilty that she was leaving her people at such a time. "We can get word to you through Marco," he assured her. "Marco will know what happens. Everything will be all right," he said, doing his best to sound hopeful for her. He gestured toward the herd in the pasture beyond the tents. "The herds are free again."
"I was thinking about Marco," Jakli said. "He's going to be lonely. Everyone will be gone. He likes you. He would never say it, but I know it. Sometimes maybe you could write to him, from wherever you are."
Shan offered a thin smile. "Sure. Write him," he said, knowing it was impossible. Outcasts and fugitives didn't correspond.
"I wish—" She abruptly stopped and raised her hand. Rifle shots could be heard, not the random volley of the nadam revelers, but regularly spaced shots several seconds apart, each louder than the one before it. The last came from the top of the ridge above the encampment.
"The sentries!" Jakli shouted in alarm and stood. "Warning shots."
The encampment burst into frenzied activity. Shan could see children being herded toward the trees beyond the pasture. One group, a tight knot of boys with two Kazakh men carrying hunting rifles, ran from the Red Stone camp. The zheli were fleeing. Men collected in small groups at the entrance of each clan camp.
Shan looked up the slope and saw Lokesh, standing beside Gendun, waving at them. Shan gestured for them to get down and the Tibetans disappeared behind their rock. Moments later a moan escaped Jakli's lips as a sleek black utility vehicle appeared, followed by a troop truck. As the vehicles stopped at the first circle of tents and the troops leapt out, the knot tying itself in Shan's stomach grew ice cold. Knobs. One of the boot squads. He pushed Jakli toward the cover of a boulder.
"Maybe," he said without conviction, "it's just a security check."
Jakli just shook her head.
The knobs, clutching the compact submachine guns used for riot control, flanked their officers, as if expecting resistance, and marched forward, shouting at the inhabitants of the first camp to present papers. A line formed, but no papers were collected. One of the officers broke away and walked alone along the front of the encampments, studying the faces of those in line. Not walked. Strutted. It was Bao. He made a dismissive gesture and the first group of Kazakhs were ordered to go into their tents.
The knobs repeated the process at two, then three camps. Shan's mind raced. It could take an hour or two, and he and Jakli would have to stay on the hill, hidden, until they were done. He looked up the hill, wondering if he could steal his way to Gendun and Lokesh.
"Marco got away," Jakli said in a hollow voice. "I saw Sophie slip into the trees."
The knobs got no further than the sixth camp, the Red Stone camp. They did not bother to ask for papers, but just marched Akzu, his wife, and Malik toward the center, a hundred feet from their trucks. Bao paced around them, shouting at them. Shan glanced at Jakli. She had a knuckle in her mouth, and was clenching it so hard in her jaw that she seemed about to bite it off.
Bao barked at a soldier, who climbed into the truck and reappeared with chains in his hands.
When he looked back Jakli was looking at the mountains to the west and her eyes were full of tears. The knobs began to herd Jakli's relatives to the trucks.
Jakli slowly stood, still watching the mountains, as if Nikki might ride across a ridge at any moment. "It will be a good day for the races later," she said, the way she might make conversation over a mug of tea. Her tears were gone, replaced by a cool glint of determination.
Shan stood too, uncertain but scared.
Jakli began walking down the path to the camps. He stood alone for a moment, then caught up with her.
"You have been like an older brother, Shan," she said. "You have taught me things."
"We should stay back," Shan warned. The large rocks that hid them from view were thinning out. In another fifty feet they would be at the valley floor, in plain sight.
