Bones of the Earth

by Eliot Pattison

  “Meaning?”

  “You’re the only military governor left in Tibet. It’s very old-school, less and less palatable to the Party. Given an excuse, the Party won’t get in the way.”

  “Shan!!” Tan barked.

  “It’s a silent, clandestine coup, Colonel. They’re trying to take over your county.”

  Tan lit a cigarette then gazed out at Amah Jiejie, who was speaking with Choden in front of the station. A lightless grin formed on his face as he opened the door and summoned his assistant. “Call that Director Ren,” he instructed her. “It’s time I observe protocol. Tell him I will be at the Five Claws this afternoon.”

  As she extracted her phone, Amah Jiejie turned then froze in alarm. Shan twisted in time to see Kami, mounted on a sheep, an instant before the frightened animal collided with Amah Jiejie. A terrified cry left the woman’s lips as she fell into a tangle of human and wool-covered limbs.

  Tan and Shan leapt into the melee. As Shan helped Amah Jiejie to her feet, Tan grabbed the girl’s shirt, suspending her as she flailed the air with arms and legs. The sheep fled with desperate bleats.

  The colonel extended the girl with one arm then comforted the shaken Amah Jiejie with the other, patting her on the back. As he did so, Kami landed a sharp kick on his knee. Tan dropped her, and Kami was hauled away by another figure who had appeared from the alley. Meng, a jacket over her uniform now, did not react when the girl tightly wrapped her arms around one of her legs.

  “It’s the end of it!” Shan shouted at the girl. “Choden!” His deputy ran forward, obviously shaken. He had never heard Shan lose his temper before. “Get me that form!” Shan ordered him.

  “Form?” Choden asked as the girl’s caretaker appeared, then he brightened and ran into the office.

  “I’m sorry,” Shan said to the woman. “Either you immediately take this little demon out of Yangkar for good, or my deputy will drive her to the reform school in Lhasa.”

  Strangely, the woman looked at Meng.

  “No,” Meng said. Kami was still wrapped around her leg.

  Shan hesitated. “I wasn’t speaking to you,” he said, realizing he had not seen the girl hug Meng in such a fashion before, nor had he seen the affectionate way Meng now patted the girl’s head.

  “No, Shan,” Meng said again.

  “I don’t understand,” he confessed, glancing at Tan and Amah Jiejie, who listened with great curiosity. “I swear I will send her there. I have the authority. She is a vandal, an undisciplined disturber of the peace who has no place in this town.” Choden reappeared, waving his form with a victorious expression.

  “No,” Meng said once more. He did not understand the smile that was growing on her face.

  “No, what?” Shan could not hide his impatience.

  “No, you will not send Kami to the reform school.”

  “And why would you think that, Lieutenant?”

  “Because, Shan, the little demon is your daughter.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ten minutes into their flight, Shan removed the headphones that let him hear what the others on the helicopter were saying and numbly stared out the window. Tan, sitting beside him, would not stop laughing and repeatedly patted Shan on the knee, though whether it was in consolation or congratulations, Shan could not tell.

  Tan had sent the helicopter back for four of his commandos, which they would call his security escort, and the colonel’s laughter had infected them as well. “An instant daughter!” Tan exclaimed in his microphone as he twisted to see his soldiers. “She just materializes on a galloping sheep! Like some old fairy tale!”

  Shan was not sure what tale he was caught in, but it did not feel like a fairy tale. His immediate reaction had been anger that Meng would mock him with such an impossible suggestion but he had quickly seen the unexpected pleading in her eyes and he had made the inevitable calculation. They had been lovers for less than a month, but that month had been five years earlier.

  With her usual wisdom Amah Jiejie had eased the effect of his paralysis by rising and hurrying to Kami. “What a wonderful sheep rider you are!” she had exclaimed, then added, “I hope I didn’t hurt you in the fall,” as she bent over the girl with a piece of the candy she always carried. Kami relaxed her grip on Meng and took a cautious step away, gazing in confusion at Meng and Shan, then let Amah Jiejie lead her toward the square, motioning the deeply amused Tan to join her.

  Shan took an unsteady step toward Meng, who now looked frightened. “I had rehearsed so many ways to tell you,” she said in a tight voice. “I wrote letters every few weeks but tore each one up. I was thinking maybe we could have gone on a picnic in the hills for you to get to know her better and when she ran off to pick wildflowers I would ease into the announcement. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  Shan could not find his voice.

  “She’s very bright, and so affectionate, Shan.” Meng was speaking quickly, nervously, now, and Shan saw moisture in her eyes. “I know she will do well with you. She’s very funny, and sometimes seems wise like—” Shan had touched his fingers to her mouth to silence her and embraced her.

  A bolt of lightning or a careening car can change a life in an instant. Shan’s life had taken a sharp pivot with six short words spoken on the street in Yangkar. The little demon is your daughter. He had remained mute as emotion stormed within him. He should say something to the girl, who now seemed frightened of him. He had to comfort Meng, who was still crying as he stared at her. He had to run into the hills and find somewhere to contemplate the impossible news. He looked across the street to see Kami skipping in circles around Amah Jiejie.

  “She seems healthy,” he said instead.

  Meng laughed through her tears.

  “She has your eyes,” Shan suggested.

  “She has your stubbornness,” Meng said, scrubbing at a cheek. She grabbed Shan’s hand and led him toward the square.

  Thankfully she had not pushed the girl on him, and Shan just watched with a dazed smile as Kami played, first with Amah Jiejie then with some Tibetan children who appeared with a puppy.

  Choden and Amah Jiejie had brought food and they had made an impromptu picnic while waiting for the helicopter to return with the soldiers. As they ate, Tan’s assistant recounted a very satisfying meeting with Metok’s widow, who had come to Lhadrung to confirm that the colonel’s office had none of her husband’s belongings and to see the jail where he had spent his last days. She had broken down into tears when seeing the cell, but eventually recovered enough to ask if Amah Jiejie might possibly accompany her sometime to her husband’s favorite shrine, a small remote chorten up in the mountains. Mrs. Lu had approached with a scowl then backed away in alarm after Choden leaned into her ear, no doubt telling her that Shan was sitting with the notorious, famous governor of the county.

  “I should stay,” Shan had said to Meng when the helicopter had made its return known by buzzing the square.

  “The one thing you must not do is stay,” Meng had replied. “Go with the colonel. He needs you. Kami and I will be here when you return tomorrow.”

  “As will I,” Amah Jiejie had interjected, and explained that she would rejoin the colonel when the helicopter dropped Shan after their visit to the Five Claws. Choden, eavesdropping, protested that he had no accommodation for her, and was visibly shaken when she said she would sleep in the jail.

  * * *

  They circled high over the valley, giving Tan a full view of the hydro project before landing on the helipad at the back of the equipment yard. Director Ren nervously awaited Colonel Tan’s party, wearing a suit and tie. Shan and the colonel had listened on the station’s speakerphone when Amah Jiejie had called Ren. She had been most adamant about the colonel’s visit, saying it was overdue and that twenty-four hours had just unexpectedly opened on his schedule.

  “Twenty-four hours?” the director had gasped.

  “Of course. Unless you think the military governor needs longer to become acquaint
ed with the largest project ever undertaken in his county. Do you have vodka?” Amah Jiejie had asked. “He likes Russian vodka for the toasts at his banquet.”

  Ren had gone silent. “Vodka,” he had repeated in a defeated whisper. “For the banquet.” Before he hung up they could hear his frantic calls to his staff.

  Tan’s soldiers leapt out before the helicopter’s rotor stopped, as if making a combat landing. They formed a corridor for Tan to walk down as he approached the director, who had an assistant snapping photographs of the esteemed occasion. Shan, in his dress uniform, climbed out behind Tan but the colonel pulled him forward so that they walked side by side toward Ren. Before they had climbed into the helicopter, Amah Jiejie had rummaged in her purse and produced several ornate medals, military decorations awarded to the colonel but which he generally declined to display. Tan had watched with amusement as she had pinned three on the colonel’s breast pocket and two on Shan’s.

  Now the director nodded with new respect at Shan before motioning them toward his office. The loudspeaker system began playing The East Is Red, the favorite anthem for military parades. Halfway to the office building, Tan halted.

  “What’s this?” he asked as he pointed to the Tibetan workers in the fenced-off quadrant of the equipment yard.

  The director seemed confused. “Just some Tibetans. We’ve had incidents. More efficient to keep them under some discipline. A reasonable precaution,” he added.

  “You’re going to make my prisons look bad,” Tan said.

  The director gave a nervous laugh.

  “Do you have any idea of the paperwork required for even a single detention?” Tan asked. “My prison auditors will need to know you are running an auxiliary jail.”

  Ren gazed into the colonel’s face, trying to detect any sign that he might be joking, then trotted to a man wearing a foreman’s red hat. The gate into the enclosure was opened, and the Tibetans started drifting uncertainly toward it. “Just some discipline,” the director said, “no real detention. It was Deputy Director Jiao’s idea. They didn’t seem to mind.”

  Shan stayed with Tan as they were given the slideshow about the ambitious project then they left the building for the same driving tour Shan had been given on his first visit. Tan insisted that a utility truck be provided for his army escort and as they waited for the vehicle, Ren directed them to the billboard-sized painting of the completed dam erected by the parking lot. “We’re doing a calendar with glossy photos,” Ren boasted as an assistant snapped a photo of Tan and himself by the painting. “This will be perfect for it.”

  As they began to pull out, the door beside Shan opened and Jiao climbed in. Ren seemed a bit deflated as he introduced his deputy. “If you have any technical questions, Jiao’s your man,” Ren said in a stiff voice.

  “Excellent!” Tan replied. “I have dozens! Like where are you hiding your army of clerks? The permits alone must number in the hundreds. The equipment licenses, explosives permits, sanitation approvals for worker facilities, not to mention all the environmental and Religious Affairs permits. And not a single one ever crossing my desk. What magicians you are!”

  The director again seemed to search for signs of humor on Tan’s face, then shrugged. “Everything was handled out of Beijing. Normal clearances were waived in the interest of the project’s strategic importance.”

  “Do not concern yourself with such trifles, Colonel,” Jiao smugly declared. “Five Claws is on the national priority list. It will provide power for millions back east. Our coal stations have been struggling to keep up with the Glorious Progress,” he said, using one of the Party’s newest terms for the country’s economic advancement. “There’s a green revolution, Colonel, and hydro is all green.”

  “The UN has shown an interest,” Ren inserted. “We just had one of their officials here, who said we are on the front line in the fight for ozone,” he added uncertainly.

  At the turquoise lake at the north end of the valley a special operation was underway. A bulldozer was pulling a dump truck out of the water. Shan recalled his conversation about accidents with the men in the mess hall. This would have been at least the second time a truck had gone into the lake.

  “A minor accident,” the director explained. “Routine really,” he nervously added, then had begun to point out the high-water mark on the cliff wall above them when a small choking sound escaped his throat. Tan was holding up the aerial photo marked to depict the god Gekho that Shan had given him while they had been waiting in Yangkar.

  Jiao made an angry hissing sound and reached from the back seat to grab it, but Tan deftly pushed it out of his reach.

  “The god was hungry,” Tan said. “If I read this right, the lake is his belly.”

  “It’s—it’s just a cartoon really,” the director sputtered. “Sort of thing that makes the Tibetans laugh.” He took a hand off the wheel and gripped the side of the paper to pull it away, then flushed as Tan resisted.

  “Carry on, Director Ren,” Tan said, folding the paper back into his pocket before he lit a cigarette.

  “The Tibetans,” Jiao declared in a patronizing tone, “are still assimilating the strategic benefits of the project.”

  “Is that what your job is, Deputy Director?” Tan asked. “Calibrating assimilation?”

  The colonel could not see the way Jiao’s lips curled around his teeth, reminding Shan of an angry predator. “The Five Claws will put this county on the world stage,” the deputy director stated.

  “Funny,” Tan replied. “They asked me to build all those prisons precisely because we were so far removed from the world stage.” He turned and blew smoke toward Jiao. “Should I send some photos of my labor brigades for your glossy calendar?”

  The silence was brittle as they approached the crew clearing the last of the juniper groves. Tan held up his hand for Ren to slow the car. “You seem to expect trouble,” the colonel observed, gesturing toward a gray-uniformed man who stood at the edge of the grove, a semi-automatic gun slung on his shoulder. The knobs had arrived.

  “There’s an old motto for engineers,” Ren replied. “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”

  “If you are preparing for battle, Director,” Tan observed in a scolding tone, “you really must consult the army.”

  “No, no! I mean, of course, Colonel, that this is just—” Ren frantically tried to collect his thoughts, “just pacification.”

  “Pacification of what? Do you have wolves?”

  “This is Tibet,” Ren said uneasily, then cast a nod over his shoulder. “My deputy is in charge of security. He is very clever in dealing with Tibetans. The guns probably aren’t even loaded.”

  Jiao’s thin smile revealed his amusement at seeing his director squirm. “Normal precautions, Colonel. A remote site of great value has to address all contingencies, here and above.”

  Tan was enjoying himself. He looked toward the sky. “Above? Are you worried about the gods then?” A moment later, as Ren braked the car to allow a log truck to pass, Tan abruptly hopped out. He paced along the edge of the grove, speaking with a group of drivers on a cigarette break. He was a man who was seldom at ease with his officers but beloved by his sergeants and privates. Ren watched in nervous confusion, and groaned as Tan wandered to an idle bulldozer, leapt up and started the engine. Jiao extracted a small walkie-talkie and ordered someone to proceed with their mission.

  Ren’s eyes went round as he watched the colonel. “Can he do that?” he asked Shan.

  Shan assumed a somber expression. “One of his officers once told me that the most powerful people in Lhadrung were Chairman Mao and Colonel Tan, and the Chairman is dead. He misses driving his tanks,” he added.

  Ren groaned as Tan lifted the bulldozer blade and actually engaged the gears, driving the huge vehicle a few feet before climbing down with a satisfied smile. He approached the Public Security guard and spoke with the man then tossed his cigarette aside and extended his hand. The guard hesitantly unslung his gun and handed
it to him. Tan examined the weapon as if on a troop inspection, then abruptly shouldered it, aimed at an empty truck, and fired. The truck’s windshield exploded into shards of glass. The workers laughed, the soldier saluted, and the director looked as if he was going to be sick.

  “The old fool,” Jiao muttered as he watched Tan. “He’s an embarrassment to his office.”

  Tan wagged a finger at Ren as he climbed back in. “The gun was loaded after all,” he chided with an amused grin.

  As they drove along the towering V-shaped pass where huge squared pits were being dug for the dam’s foundation, Jiao’s radio crackled and they heard a single word: “Launching.” Ren brightened, then accelerated the truck onto a small flat knoll and motioned them out. “Colonel, you will enjoy this!” he exclaimed.

  There was a high-pitched whine and then a large white disc soared overhead. Shan watched with a sinking feeling as he recognized it and exchanged a knowing glance with Tan. The colonel had been furious when Shan had told him that the mysterious package bound for the Five Claws had been an army drone.

  Shan scanned the valley floor and spotted a black utility vehicle with a small field table set up beside it. A knob sat at the table, leaning over a laptop computer while Lieutenant Huan stood at his shoulder, watching the screen. The drone was being calibrated, he realized as it flew in circles then made several short dives. Soon it began ascending toward the slopes below the high pass, then hovered over the mouth of the imploded cavern halfway up the slope.

  “The maiden flight,” Shan suggested, wondering if the Tibetans above had understood the risk he had tried to describe to them. Their campsite and any yak train leaving it would be instantly spotted if the drone ventured above the field of outcroppings.

  “The first operational flight,” Jiao confirmed. “We have been testing, learning it is best to fly in midafternoon. Too many shadows in the morning.” It meant, Shan hoped, that not only would the risk have become obvious to those above, but that the drone flights were predictable.