Leadville: 300 Days Away

by Kara Skye Smith

  "You are alive," he says to Tenzing.

  "You are alive too." The two begin walking together.

  Lhosta tells him, "I escaped. Did not have a weapon. I was in the fields."

  "You got away," Tenzing affirms.

  "I did. I saw -" Lhosta looks down for a moment, thinking of how to describe what he saw, what he did to get away.

  Tenzing interrupts, "Did you see my brother? My younger brother? You were in the fields. That's what you said, isn't it? You were in the fields?" Lhosta nods but can not get a word in. Tenzing is stammering with the excitement of meeting someone who might have seen his brother, getting his words out quickly.

  "He was on a horse - I think. I heard a gunshot. I heard the horse-"

  Lhosta interrupts him, "Yes! I saw him! I saw the horse. You were right. He got on a horse. I saw him jump it and begin to run. He laid down right on the horse's shoulders and the horse began to run. I thought of lightening for some reason. Fast as lightening, started to go, maybe, but he was shot, you're right, the horse was shot. I saw it. And I heard it too. The scream. I'll never forget the sound."

  Tenzing stops and knocks on a door.

  "You'll be welcome, in here, with me," Tenzing says. "Danthra's house," he knocks again, "my older brother."

  "Who is it?" a gruff voice asks lowly.

  "Tenzing! and Lhosta. Open up!" Danthra answers the door.

  "What are you doing here?" Tenzing asks, but Danthra reaches out for his shoulder and hurries him in through the doorway.

  "I thought you would be in Litang." Lhosta follows Tenzing in. As Danthra closes the door, Tenzing glances around the room he has not seen for a year and then, across the room, Tenzing sees him. He is sitting in a chair, the dearest sight, the sweetest smile, that Tenzing could have hoped to see - and did hope for thirty three hours that he would see - alive again - his little brother.

  "Tiyo!!!" Tenzing yells and the joy rings through him. Tiyo sits in the chair, smiling, smugly back.

  "I knew you would find me here," he says. "I knew you would, find me. Didn't I tell you Danthra? He always finds me."

  Overwhelming relief comes over Tenzing like a wave; and, Tenzing nearly collapses. His knees nearly buckle, his ankles nearly crumble. He feels his feet go weak.

  "Come sit down," Danthra tells Tenzing. "You don't look so good." He helps Tenzing to a chair and Lhosta follows, crouching on the floor. Danthra throws Lhosta a pillow.

  "It is a long trail," Lhosta reminds Danthra, almost too tired to talk.

  "That is true, but you are here now. You can rest. Tell me about the attack. Tiyo did not know much about it. You got him out in time. Many thanks, to you, Tenzing. That was thinking with your head." "But I wanted to fight," Tiyo says. Danthra laughs.

  "He's been angry that you would not let him stay, and win the fight for you." Tenzing smiles.

  "You are lucky to be alive, Tiyo." Lhosta says, "I saw many men shot, right after your horse, right near where we thought you were," he points between Tenzing and himself. Tiyo nods his head and lowers his eyes.

  "Thank you Tenzing. For getting me out on time."

  "I thought of hiding you, but now that I see you here, I am glad I told you to run for it. Frightened, you must have been, Tiyo, when the horse you jumped was shot?"

  "Yes," Tiyo nods his head, "but I did not let fear stop me, like Danthra has told me."

  "You did not tell me the horse was shot," Danthra looks at him. "He told me," he says to Tenzing, "that he turned the horse and ran through the men and bullets, like lightening. If only we'd have given him one of the guns, he said, he'd have killed all the Chinese soldiers for me."

  Tenzing laughs. "It was not like that at all," and with the weariness of Tenzing's laugh, Danthra's expression grows more serious. He rubs his chin, as he often does when thinking. Lhosta looks at the boy not much older than himself and catches his glance at him, looking eachother eye to eye.

  Lhosta nods to him, "Lightening," and smiles.

  Tiyo nearly laughs and says, "I guess I did not quite run the horse through the bullets. I don't think that's what I said, did I? I did not say 'through' the bullets," he looks at Danthra, but the seriousness of the room grows and Lhosta tells the story of what he saw, in the ditch, and they all begin to wonder about the state of the monastery, about friends and neighbors. They begin to wonder if the Chinese have left Litang, and although the room is full of the tired exhaustion of the three refugees, recently arrived on foot, it is also full of the chatter of what they saw and what to do now that their home has been invaded and attacked. The men talk for nearly an hour and then Danthra tells them to eat and sleep. He will be on the radio, he says, pulling back a curtain where a closet door had been, and disappearing behind it, for his radio must be kept a secret. It is the radio from the CIA. One of them. And he will call for help and guns and ammo, to see that his brothers can get back, someday, to the home they love, to Litang, the city and the monastery where Lhosta lives and his younger brother learns about Buddism - the very reason the Chinese invaders attacked Litang.

  Danthra radios to Litang. The words he hears are broken, frantic. Many people have been killed. Bombs were dropped on the monastery. "Everybody was rushing around. Grabbing what they could find to fight with. We didn't know who they were killing. We fought with knives and axes, swords and antique rifles. We have lost so many."

  "Do you have any idea of the Chinese killed?" Danthra asks, wondering their situation and the odds of returning his brothers to their home.

  "Don't know. There were so many. We were vastly outnumbered. So many dead. Won't have any figures of casualties for a while."

  "I have two, my brothers, and a monk from the monastery, here." "Keep them there. They were lucky to get out. Lucky to be alive, I think. You have enough in Lhasa. Many wounded, supplies scarce, you know." Danthra's radio receives static. He lowers the frequency for power.

  "Did you radio for supplies?" he asks the Resistance radio receiver in Litang.

  "I have already requested supplies from the Americans. Can you radio again? He would hear Lhasa is involved, you are good to help." Danthra smiles, this radio is what he knows. The CIA have promised him help, and so he'll call.

  "Yes. I'll send word."

  "Over and out."

  "Over - out." Danthra emerges from the radio 'room' where the closet had once been. He paces and talks excitedly with his hands. He tells the young monk and his brothers of the bombs and the attack. He tells them he must use the radio again, to the CIA. The room is filled with talk of the need for even numbers weapons, supplies.

  Danthra tells his brothers, "I know a place. You can receive training. You must go," he tells his brothers, "you are able bodied, young."

  Tenzing objects, "Too young," he says looking toward his little brother, "I'll go."

  Danthra disagrees, "You should have heard him! He wants to fight. There were many casualties. We can not afford to let this slide. He will go. You both will go. The CIA has told me of this place where there is training. A camp."

  "Like Saipan?" Tenzing asks him.

  "No," Danthra says. "This one is in America. This is what we must do. Both of you must go."

  "I'll go," Tenzing says again, "but Tiyo is too young."

  "No! I'm not. I want to go!" Tiyo yells.

  "Besides, we need him," Danthra applies persuasion, "and Lhosta, if you want to go, you are welcome to go with, but I can't make you go... your spiritual path - not meant for fighting - until now it seems. You must make up your own mind."

  "I'll go, too," Lhosta says quietly.

  "What?" Danthra asks, "I did not hear you."

  "He'll go!" Tenzing yells, "We'll all go." His face looks unhappy, stern, but he knows his brother is sending them to the CIA training for the sake of Tibet and even Lhosta has decided to fight for Buddism, for Litang.

  "This is for the Resistance!" Danthra insists.

  "I know," he says, "
I am just tired."

  "You are not unsure of my decision then?"

  "No," Tenzing says and lies down.

  "Good," Danthra heads back toward the curtain, "I'll wire Saipan."

  1957 Leadville.

  Mac McCarthy watches the face of the man above him as he glides the dollap of thick goo through Mac's hair with the thin, black, plastic comb. His serious expression dips and darts with little eyebrow lifts and furrows as Mac's hair becomes evenly greased and styled. Mac looks at himself in the mirror straight ahead. His own expression is a pleasant one, upturned corners of the mouth with the look of an innocent child as he watches the comb, like he has done at this juncture of the haircutting process, of the same style, for most of his life.

  "What do ya say?" the barber, his barber, asks him as his left hand pats Mac's hair ever so lightly to the finishing touch of his style.

  "You happy with that?"

  "Just great! Bertram. Best yet. Really," Mac turns his head slightly to the left and to the right, looking at his hair in the mirror.

  "I like it!"

  "It's your style, Mac. Just like you like it."

  "Well, it's not high fashion, but it-" the barber finishes his words with him, "It fits you." They both laugh.

  "Yes, it does," the barber says.

  "How much?"

  "O, you only owe me twenty dollars," the barber says, "but I think most of that was from the cards last night, not the haircut."

  Mac laughs, "So, you're not going to forget about that. Well, here ya go."

  "Where ya heading off to now? Some presidential benefit or spy mission?"

  "Ha! Yeah, sure. Bert, you know, that's only a rumor. I'm out to do a pick up at the airport today. Real official." Bertram eyes him with one eyebrow raised.

  "Aw, I don't know about you. You have a good one whatever it is you do today."

  "Thanks," Mac says, "and thanks for the haircut."

  "It looks very good on you!" an old lady says to him, clutching her purse, from a plastic chair near a table heaped with magazines. She is waiting while her grandson gets a haircut.

  "Well, thank you, ma'am. That's right kind of you. Bye now. Bye Bertram!"

  A little bell clinks and jangles as Mac steps out into the near blinding brightness of the Colorado sunshine in the fall. He pulls a stick of gum from his pocket and unwraps it, slowly, from the foil packaging. He basks in the sunlight for a moment, the gel from his hair glistening, his freshly laundered and pressed suit hanging to the fit and taylor's specifications just above newly polished shoes that practically reflect his image as he looks down watching the paper foil glint and glisten in the morning sun. Mac checks his watch. He has two hours before he has to be at the airport.

  "A half hour drive," he thinks. "The wife's off at her sister's by now, she hates saying good-bye. This one was a hard one. Not like they get any less difficult. 300 days away," he thinks.

  "300," he says out loud. "Uah! What the heck." Mac crumbles the foil and puts it in is pocket. He heads for the shiny sedan parked just one spot up from the barber along the curb. Inside it, he fishes for his car keys from his pocket and starts the purring semi-automatic, his hands at ten and two along the thin, firm, shiny metal of the brand new, out early, 1958 model, State-issued, CIA standard automobile. Mac lays his arm out over the front davenport seating of the crimson leather interior and lays off the break as the car goes into reverse.

  "Practically drives itself," Mac thinks out loud. A rather large man, Mac is dwarfed by the sedan's comfortable 'living room' interior. He pulls down the transmission lever of the four-speed automatic gearbox 'til it's resting on the D and drives off from his 'favorite barber in the West' to the The Wickin Apartments on Left Avenue Drive.

  Tenzing fumbles with the ticket in his hands. He looks at the departure time on the itinerary folded neatly into the packet by the attractive Chinese woman at the boarding counter half a continent ago. He glances at the return ticket information.

  "300 days away," he thinks. "300," he says outloud.

  "What did you say?" Lhosta asks, standing out amonst the Colorado crowds in his crimson and orange robes of the monastery.

  "Oh, nothing," Tenzing responds reluctantly. "Just looking at the dates and thinking about when we will return."

  Tiyo laughs, "Already?! We just got here." Tenzing musters a slight smile toward his friends. He shrugs.

  "I had met someone," he says, very quietly.

  "What?" Lhosta asks loudly. Tenzing looks embarrassed.

  "I'd met someone," he says a little louder, moving his shoulders, losening the muscles, unshouldering a secret he has thought about since that dark dawn of morning - the day of the attacks.

  "Matseidha," Tenzing says.

  "O no way!" Tiyo smiles at Lhosta. "Tenzing never says "I like her' when I am always saying, 'Matseidha - what about Matseidha?' Ha!" he points to him.

  "All of a sudden," Lhosta asks him, "Maybe you just want to attach yourself to home right now."

  "Yeah," Tiyo says, "what about an American girl?"

  Tenzing shakes his head.

  "The girl back at the Lhasa airport? H-u-h?" Tiyo giggles.

  "I knew I should not have told you," Tenzing grows quiet.

  "No, no, I won't tease," Tiyo says. "Do you think she... is alright? Made it out? Like we did?" he looks to Lhosta for an answer.

  "Maybe," he says.

  "Come on," Tiyo urges them, "the line has moved up."

  Outside with their baggage, the three Tibetan men wait near a sign that says Pick-ups. They wait in the Colorado sunshine, outside the airport of the mile high city, snow peaks within view on the horizon, dressed as one monk and two resistance fighters. The three of them wait as if a spotlight from an old, Colorado cowboy of a god has just pointed them out and the people who walk by are staring.

  "Look mommy!" one little girl says, her finger pointing, "it's an old man, dressed like a girl! Mommy look!"

  "Shh!," the girl is told, "don't look at them. They might want to hurt you."

  Tenzing pretends not to understand what she has said in the broken English that he knows. He does not want to tell the other two.

  "Babies," he says to them in Amdo, the dialect of Kham. The dialect of Chushi Gagdruk (pronounced Chu-bzhi-sgang-drug), meaning: Four Rivers, Six Ranges. The name of the band of resistance fighters honored since the Litang attacks through the hills. Remembering victory, Tenzing sniffs the wind, incensed by this little girl's rudeness. He does not have to take this shit, he thinks, and grows impatient.

  "What time did he say the car would arrive?" Lhosta shrugs. "Worlds away", Tenzing thinks when he looks at Lhosta shrouded in the garb of tradition, his young, bald head shining, being asked about Pickup times and Itineraries.

  Tenzing tells him, "Lhosta, you are worlds away."

  Mac arrives at the airport's Pick-up Station 'on the dot', as Mac likes to say when he looks at his watch. The drive out of Denver, up into the mountain tops, is a solemn one. Tenzing does most of the talking, answering Mac's questions and translating the best he can when Mac requests answers from his younger brother and Lhosta. Mac isn't his usual talkative neither. His questions are followed by long silences where he looks out the left window, briefly, keeping his hands on the wheel and remarking on the view with words like, "beautiful" and "stunning".

  "They're kids," he keeps thinking. "Three kids, far from home. What do I want to put a gun in their hands for, teach them to kill eachother? For 300 days, away from my family, for the same pay as a Presidential dinner with a meal and several hours of watching the door." Mac does not say these things out loud. That is not like Mac. He keeps things, things like this, to himself.

  "Types, like me, working for the CIA, we can't talk a lot about these things, Dora," he remembers excusing himself out of a lengthy explanation to the woman he'd seen just an hour before; and, as a dark mood passes over him, checking the rearview, seeing Lhosta see him, at th
at same moment, looking up from the view of the mountains to the rearview, Mac realizes when the negative thinking of a CIA man sets in, there just isn't a lot that can be talked about.

  The drive from the mile high city lasts about two and a half hours, nearly straight up, with one stop for gas and chewing gum. When the car does reach its final destination and Mac pulls it to a stop, Tenzing and the boys step out of the car and look around. It is so quiet their footsteps make seemingly loud sounds crunching against the gravel and frozen ground.

  Up in the clouds, surrounded by tip-tops of mountains, Tenzing says,

  "Once again, I am at the top of the world - just on the other side of the continent this time."

  Mac asks him, "Remind you of home, does it?"

  "Yes it does," Tenzing acknowledges.

  Tiyo asks in Amdo, "When do we go back to Denver?"

  Lhosta laughs and Tenzing shoots a look at him, already worried he might like America too much. Mac slips the key into the trunk lock and pops open the roomy luggage compartment.

  "Let's get our things, boys," he says and starts tossing out bags, setting suitcases down on the cold, white-dusted ground.

  Up at the front gate, the view looks more internment camp or outdoor zoo than CIA hospitality hotel. Tiyo gives a wide-eyed glance at his two companions, wondering if they should go in. High fences are topped with barbed wire and one or two snap with an electrical current at random when Mac presses a card he holds into a box on the gate. The door opens for them and the three Tibetans step inside while Mac closes the gate behind them.

  "Clearance," he says. A guard approaches from a wooden, one-windowed structure, and the three are searched. Tiyo's expression changes from wide-eyed wonder to absolute fright until the guard stops touching him and his brothers.