“What kind of holy man is this?” Lokesh asked at last.
What kind of bloodwalker is this? Shan almost added.
A shout from somewhere within the village broke the spell. Lokesh rose and stood at the door, watching the street, while Shan refastened the lining with hasty stitches.
The villagers returned to their vigil in twos and threes, their chatter fading as they approached the stable, new, excited whispers rising as they saw that their would-be saint had moved.
The guard appeared, followed a moment later by Chodron. “What have you done?” the genpo demanded as he neared the form now outstretched on the pallet. “He awakened! I must speak with him.” He kneeled and poked the man’s arm.
Shan asked in a loud, slow voice, “How often have you seen such a great column of juniper smoke?”
The headman stared at Shan, his brows knitted. The villagers leaned forward.
“The juniper smoke touched the sky,” Shan explained, fixing Chodron with a level stare. “And then he moved without waking.” A murmur of wonder rippled through the onlookers.
“The deities arrived!” a woman exclaimed. “And they lifted him!”
The headman glared at Shan. Then, with a wary glance at the onlookers, he went to the wooden bowl holding incense sticks, lit one from a lamp, and placed it in the cracked plank that held the others. Chodron settled against the wall, studying Shan with intense curiosity, then after several minutes, rose and left.
As the purple light of sunset filtered over the horizon the three friends shared tsampa and momo, Tibetan dumplings, with a score of villagers around a fire pit behind the headman’s house. The villagers listened with rapt attention as Lokesh spoke of his many travels around the fringes of modern Tibet, even touching, ever so tentatively, upon his years, decades earlier, as an official in the Dalai Lama’s government.
At last there was no one left but the headman and three gray-haired villagers, introduced as the village elders, two men and the woman in the black dress who had first given Shan tea. Although Chodron fastidiously performed his obligations as host, filling their cups one more time, all warmth had left his face. “Seldom do we receive visitors,” the headman said. “You have honored us. But as you see, we are beginning our harvest. Every hand must be lifted to the work.” He was inviting them to leave.
“Then it is fortunate my friends and I are here, so we can care for the stranger in the stable, freeing others for their tasks,” Shan replied impassively.
“You mean the murderer in our jail.” The deference Chodron had previously shown Shan was gone.
The elders said nothing. One stared into his bowl of tea. The woman, her hands clasped in her lap, chewed absently on a piece of dried cheese, glancing repeatedly at Shan before looking away.
“It is a terrible responsibility, to sit in judgment of others,” Shan said.
“I will not flee from my duty,” Chodron shot back.
“He is ill. When he awakens he may not be able to speak for himself.”
Chodron silently rose, entered the rear door of his house, and returned a moment later with a small wooden chest that he set on the ground by the fire. The headman extracted a cloth bundle from within, then unfolded it on the ground in front of Shan. “We already know the blackness of his deeds.”
He displayed a hammer, a modern rock hammer, one end blunt and square, the other extending in a long, slightly curving claw. There was still enough light for Shan to see the dried blood and small gray flecks on the claw. “His hands were covered with the blood of those he killed,” the headman explained. “He finished one of them with a blow from that claw to the back of the head.” Chodron tapped the handle of the hammer with his boot, revealing a second object underneath. “No one wants to even think about what he did with his other weapon.”
It was a slender rod of stainless steel that rose into a curved sharp hook at one end. It was so out of context that it took Shan a moment to recognize it as a dental pick. The tip was covered in blood.
The woman shuddered and looked away. The other two elders stared into the fire, carefully avoiding looking at the objects.
“The people of the town say there are no witnesses,” Lokesh reminded them.
“My people are like children when it comes to things of the outside world,” Chodron said. “They must be taught right from wrong.”
“And you will do so by killing this stranger?” Shan asked.
“If the deities wish to prevent it, they can take him before he awakes. Otherwise,” Chodron said in a brittle tone, “those of us responsible for the village know our obligations. We will have a town assembly. We will speak of what happened, of why we must do what we have to do. I have been rereading the old records with the elders. Perhaps it will be enough to take something of his body, perhaps only one eye. In the old days they sometimes just took an eye. We are taught to be compassionate.”
“Compassion in Drango,” Lokesh observed in a haunted tone, “has a flavor all its own.”
The old woman tightened her hands. They covered something inside her blouse. She was wearing a gau around her neck, Shan realized, a prayer box, the only one he had seen among the villagers.
Chodron ignored Lokesh. “The punishment will be carried out according to our custom. If he is still alive afterward he will be taken to the nearest road. For as long as the village has been here it has punished its own wrongdoers. The true test of a leader, like that of a barn beam, is when a storm wind blows. I will not retreat from my duty.”
“We have seen what you do with beams in Drango,” Shan said.
Chodron clenched his jaw. “I caught Yangke stealing from my house. He confessed in front of the village and I read out the traditional punishment. Some argued that he should be taken to the county seat, to Tashtul, that he was not subject to our decision because he had lived so long away from the village. I gave him the choice. I said I would write a report and send him with it to Public Security, which already has a file on him. I reminded him there were many prisons ready for people like him-new prisons are being built all the time. The next morning he asked me to put the wooden collar on him. As for this stranger, how do you think they would deal with a double murderer down in the world? Do you truly wish me to summon the authorities? They will send a helicopter, with soldiers carrying machine guns. If you continue you give me no choice.”
Shan’s mouth went dry. “Continue? I just arrived.”
“Your presence and that of your two friends has caused people to speak behind my back. Many who were weaned of their prayer beads years ago secretly ask your lama for blessings. Half my people realize that this man is a murderer but the others call him a saint. We had plenty of lamps in that stable already but the day after your lama arrived, people insisted there be one hundred eight,” Chodron said with scorn. That was the sacred number, the number of prayer beads on a string and the number of lamps traditionally placed on altars for special ceremonies. “My people speak to perfect strangers about our private affairs. My authority is in question. Our village’s progress is in jeopardy.”
“Do you know who Gendun is?” Shan asked.
“I have heard of someone called the Pure Water Lama who wanders the hills like some lonely old goat. I have no idea what he does.”
“What he does,” Lokesh said, “is collect delicate blossoms in old cracked jars.”
The words elicited a hungry gaze from one of the old men.
Chodron ignored the comment. “I have heard of this lama. I have also heard of talking yaks and mountains that fly.”
“Gendun is here,” Lokesh said, “because these people need him. If he had been aware of what was happening here he would have come long ago.”
Chodron glared at Lokesh. “Do you truly believe you can descend upon our village and destroy all we have struggled to build?” Anger flared in his eyes. “I know now why you sent for this man Shan behind my back. You thought having a Chinese with you would change everything. You thought our people wou
ld be so scared of a Chinese that you could simply order us to release that killer.”
“The village needs to understand what took place,” Lokesh protested. “It needs to stop fearing-”
“I am not frightened,” Chodron interrupted. “I know your dishonorable kind. One of his arms will show what he is.”
Lokesh slipped his prayer beads from his wrist and extended them toward the genpo. “Take these to understand our kind.”
Shan put his hand on his friend’s arm to quiet him. He rolled up his sleeve and turned the inside of his forearm into the light of the fire. One of the old men moaned. The old woman covered her mouth with her hand. The elders might know little of the outside world but they knew enough to recognize the row of numbers tattooed on his skin. Shan understood why Chodron’s demeanor toward him had changed. The herders who had traveled with Shan and seen him roll up his sleeves at mountain streams must have disclosed that he was tattooed with a number.
“Tell me this, prisoner,” Chodron asked triumphantly. “Do you have your release papers?”
The question hung in the air for a long time. Somewhere a dog barked. A lamb bleated.
“No,” Shan admitted. He had not escaped but his release had been unofficial.
He was vaguely aware of movement at his side but did not see what Lokesh was doing until the old Tibetan had thrust his own bared arm into the firelight, displaying a similar line of numbers.
“Shan is the reason I did not die in prison. He forced my jailers to release me,” Lokesh explained. “From the hour he was thrown past the barbed wire into our camp Shan has helped Tibetans.”
“You are welcome to join him,” Chodron replied in a chilly voice. “You can help each other back to the hole you slithered out of.”
“Or else?” Shan asked, repressing his anger as he struggled to understand the strange power Chodron held over the village.
Chodron’s thin lips curled into a smile. “Or else it will be like old times when the headman presented proof of the crime, then exacted the punishment with the blessing of our abbot. You will cure my people of this reactionary notion that saints may walk among them. You will restore my people’s confidence by giving me the proof I need to demonstrate my authority.”
“We will not lie.” Shan stated.
“Only affirm the truth,” Chodron replied. “Stand with your lama tomorrow morning and declare that man is a killer and all three of you can be twenty miles away by sunset. You are the ones who created our problem. You are the ones to correct it.”
“The Tibetans I know do not gouge out eyes or throw men from cliffs.”
“Those you know!” Chodron spat. “You are an outsider. A criminal. Do not presume to instruct us in our traditions.”
In the silence that followed, the wind surged for a moment, fanning the flames, tossing open the back door of Chodron’s house. Shan saw a blush of color in the dim light, red with dabs of yellow. An altar? The pattern of color coalesced. Chodron had hung the flag of Beijing at the rear entry.
Shan studied the elders for a moment. “Where are the children?” he asked abruptly.
“Children?” Chodron shot a wary glance toward the elders. The old woman cupped her hands and stared into them. The oldest-a frail man with a white, wispy beard-cast an empty, longing look at Shan. The genpo rose and stood between Shan and the elders.
“I have seen none between the ages of perhaps five and eighteen,” Shan continued. “Tell us where you’ve sent them.”
“Away,” Chodron muttered.
“Chinese school,” Lokesh said, grasping Shan’s meaning. “Where they lose their Tibetan names. Where they are forced to speak only Chinese and sing the songs of Beijing. Where they are taught the Dalai Lama is a criminal.”
Chodron offered no denial.
“How many times have you gone to school, Chodron?” Shan asked. At schools for municipal leaders, the curriculum was established by senior Party members. Chodron spoke and dressed like a farmer but at his temple the lamas were Party bosses.
“Who are you?” Chodron snarled. “Why were you in prison?”
Shan ignored his question. “What bargains have you made in order to keep Drango the way it is?”
Lokesh extracted a cone of incense from a pocket and dropped it into the embers at the edge of the fire. The man with the white beard stared at the thin plume of smoke, absently extending his fingers into it.
Chodron’s countenance grew rigid. “You shall give the village the affirmation it needs,” he declared. “The headman always carried out severe punishments with a lama at his side. Your lama will stand with me when the sentence is executed, to give me his blessing. Meanwhile, we keep your lama. If he does not restore order by joining me at the appointed time, then I will speak to Public Security about outlaws in robes. Our herders now know where you hide.”
The gray-haired woman set her bowl down and turned her face away.
Chodron added as he took a step toward his house, “But if the deities are truly on your side, they will take the killer into their embrace and never let him wake.”
“So the way he proves his innocence,” Shan said, “is by dying?”
Chodron rejoined in a mocking tone, “Death is but a reward to the virtuous, isn’t that what you teach? But if he awakes. . We will deal with him after the harvest. Before our festival. You have seven days.”
“Please understand,” came a voice as dry as straw. The gray-haired woman finally spoke. “Look at our village. We live on a diet of promises and fear. Chodron has preserved our ways the best he knows how. All we want for Drango is justice, our own justice. You must give us justice.”
Lokesh and Shan exchanged a melancholy glance. Justice. It was a topic they had long ago worn out, a word that had acquired a strange, alien ring to Shan’s ears. He had once thought he could obtain justice for Tibetans. But Lokesh had taught him better, shown him that the government cared little about crimes committed among such remote people. For such Tibetans there was only truth, and the terrible consequences of truth.
Chapter Two
Shan left in the gray light before dawn after glancing through the cracked stable door and over the shoulder of a guard slumped against the inside wall, to confirm that Gendun still maintained his vigil. It was the kind of morning when he and his friends would often slip away to greet the sun, sometimes sprinkling a few kernels of barley for the birds. But the feeling of foreboding that gripped Shan made him wonder if he would ever find such peace of mind again.
A pebble bounced onto the bare earth in front of him, then another. He paused, expecting to spot a sheep on the shadowed slope above, but he saw nothing. Another pebble flew over his shoulder. He heard soft, hurried footfalls on the trail behind him before he could make out the figure hurrying toward him.
“You are not the only one who needs a morning blessing,” Lokesh said when he reached Shan’s side. The first rays of the sun were considered by some of the old Tibetans to be a special gift of the earth deities.
“At the end of this particular trail will be no blessing,” Shan warned.
“The only answer we have found so far is that there are no answers to be found in the village,” Lokesh replied and raced ahead, disappearing around a high rock outcropping.
By the time Shan reached him, Lokesh, who was more than half again Shan’s age, was seated on a high, flat ledge, legs folded into each other, staring at the ragged silhouettes of the eastern ranges as he told his beads in a whisper. Nearby, half a dozen sheep stared at the horizon as intently as did Lokesh himself.
Shan lowered himself onto a slab of rock ten feet away, not wishing to disturb his friend. He knew what to expect, having seen Lokesh in the predawn light with the same joyful expectation on his countenance scores of times before, and though his anxiety at the events of the day before robbed him of his own tranquillity, he drew strength from watching his friend and waiting for the inevitable moment to come.
Lokesh would recite his mantra as the dar
kness faded, then just before the first rays of light he would abruptly cease, catch his breath and hold it, not inhaling again until the sun appeared. Shan had never seen him fail, never seen him have to draw in another quick breath before the brilliant rays of light appeared. At first he had tried to decipher the strange calculation that Lokesh surely must be doing, then eventually decided there was no calculation, that Lokesh was connected to the natural world in a way he would never experience. Once, coming from a twenty-four-hour meditation, deprived of sleep, Shan had found himself watching Lokesh, not the sun, and for a moment had been overcome with panic that Lokesh would forget to inhale, and the sun would not come up.
Shan was close enough to see Lokesh’s chest freeze and found that he too was holding his breath, watching until a blinding seed of energy materialized on the rim of the mountains. Lokesh acknowledged Shan with his uneven smile, made crooked by the boot of a prison guard years before, then finished his rosary before rising and continuing up the trail. It was one of the many little rituals that defined the lives of the old Tibetans.
They had walked perhaps a mile when they saw a second group of sheep, a dozen rugged, long-haired creatures that sat in the lee of an outcropping above a stream, all intently watching something below. Shan saw the familiar brown mastiff first, on the slope a hundred feet away, as curious as the sheep at the strange sight on the bank of the stream. The figure at the water’s edge was readily recognizable, though the actions of the man in the canque were not.
Yangke was performing what appeared to be a dance, jumping in the air, then kicking out with one foot. His hands were no longer bound by the fittings of the canque, though he was forced to keep a grip on it with one hand to maintain his balance. As they watched, he kicked several times, the last so violently the weight of the collar threw him backward onto the ground. Rising, he made a long sweeping arc with the end of the beam, seeming to scrape the earth, then moved fifty feet downstream and repeated the motions.
Prayer of the Dragon is-5 Page 3