"They've all been reported missing by their offices," Xu said stiffly. "Someone said they saw Bao pick up Ko and the general at the Brigade compound, in one of the boot squad trucks, but no one saw them afterward. This afternoon the knobs from Kashgar took a look at the Brigade offices. Found a storeroom of contraband. Smuggled goods. Someone said maybe they caused the accident at Glory Camp, to cover up evidence." Nikki's goods, Shan thought. The goods they had stolen from Nikki when they seized his caravan would condemn them.
"People could be convinced that they fled," he suggested. "That they were corrupt and ran in fear of being discovered."
She sighed. "There're campaigns for that too," she said with a slow nod, holding the broom tightly, as if it were all that kept her from blowing away. "Must have fled to America. Everyone knew Ko liked American cars." She appeared much older than her years. She had bags under her eyes, as if she had not slept. "The Poverty Scheme won't stop," she said with a tone of apology.
"I know."
"But those horses, they're too much trouble. We're not going to round up the horses again." She bent with the broom and swept some more.
"There was a hatmaker," Shan said to her back, and found he had trouble swallowing, "who loved those horses."
Xu halted and slowly turned. "Apparently," she said with a frown. "I read the reports. She went north, to a coal mine prison."
"Maybe a mistake was made," Shan suggested. "Maybe she was helping you in your corruption investigation, helping prove that Bao killed Sui over money. You still have Sui's body to explain and the morgue can testify that Bao falsified records." It would be a solution. Not perfect, but he had never known justice to be perfect. Sui could become a posthumous hero, killed by those he was investigating for corruption.
"Just a hatmaker," she said in a near whisper, with her distant look. "What does a hatmaker know about mining coal?" She frowned again, then sighed. "I couldn't just have her freed. Everyone knew she was breaching probation. It would be a transfer to a lao jiao camp. For a few months."
Shan nodded, and she grimaced, then nodded back as if to seal an agreement.
She fell silent, then continued sweeping. He watched her work. She seemed to have grown smaller. "If I had a letter from the Chairman," he said after a moment, "a letter about killing monks, I think I know what I would do with it."
She stopped and looked back at him.
"I would write a reply on the bottom of it," he explained. "Maybe I would say it was wrong what I did, and wrong for you, Comrade Chairman, to pretend it was good to kill monks. Maybe some night I would go alone out to the place where the Tibetan died today and I would light a fire of fragrant wood. Then I would burn the letter to send it to the Chairman, and watch the ashes fly away to the heavens."
Xu stared at the ground by Shan's feet. "It wasn't Kaju's fault," she said in her distant voice. Then she raised her broom and swept again. "There's a little suitcase," she said after a moment. "We found it in Rongqi's room, like it was packed to take back to Urumqi." She gestured toward the bench on the hill above the cemetery, and said no more.
When he said goodbye, she only nodded without looking up. He stopped on top of the hill and looked at her small, bent figure among the neglected graves, the empty desert beyond, slowly moving along the long, desolate landscape.
He found the suitcase beside the bench and opened it. It was a sleek, black leather case with an Italian label, and inside were Rongqi's trophies, the proof he had required for payment of his bounties. Four small, dusty, tattered shoes.
***
The Maos drove south, through Yoktian, onto the main road into the Kunlun. Marco talked with Sophie about the long trip they were to make, then talked with Shan about how they might cook all the fish they would catch. They stopped unexpectedly, behind the first truck, which was pulled to the side of the road. Jowa and Fat Mao were talking to a group of mounted Uighurs. Some of the prisoners from Glory Camp had passed the riders on the way home, they reported. There would be celebrations in the hill camps that night as Uighur families were reunited. Kazakh prisoners, Fat Mao added, were rushing to join the clans now dispersed by the Poverty Scheme. The Maos would see that they found their families.
An old man from the rice camp had been walking up the road into the mountains, one of the riders added. He had been offered a ride in a truck but declined, the man explained with a laugh, because he said he had to watch a butterfly.
Jowa darted to the rider's side. "Where?" he asked urgently.
The Uighur shook his head with a grin, then stood in his saddle and pointed. On a ridge half a mile away a tiny figure could be seen, walking hurriedly through the high brown grass.
"Crazy old-" the Uighur began, but broke off, open-mouthed. Jowa was gone, leaping through the grass running toward the distant figure. In the back of the truck, Lokesh began to laugh. Fat Mao called out that he would send one of the trucks back before dusk.
In the late afternoon they arrived at a small cabin a hundred yards from the road, surrounded by a grove of poplars. It was a surprisingly busy place, with the cheerful noise of boys. Half the Red Stone clan had already passed through, Fat Mao explained, and would be at the silo sanctuary by nightfall, where they would meet Marco and the remainder of the clan the next day. Six of the zheli boys, Jengzi, the Tibetan, and the five surviving Kazakh boys, had been left at the cabin with Akzu and the others. The boys were listening attentively to Malik, who was trying to arrange a game of baseball.
Fat Mao looked at Jengzi. "I know of two dropka at the silo," he said to Shan. "They buried a boy named Alta."
Shan smiled, remembering the forlorn words of the herder the day the man had found them hiding in the rocks. All they had wanted was to have a son and live in peace. They needed a son, and Jengzi needed parents.
Shan surveyed the clearing by the cabin and its jubilant population. The stout woman from town was there as well, cooking a giant pot of stew and baking stacks of nan bread, assisted by Akzu's wife. The Yakde Lama was watching from the trees, his eyes clouded, staring at the opposite side of the clearing. Shan followed his gaze toward a path through the trees. He quietly followed it past the small stream that ran by the cabin to a ledge with a long, high view to the desert. He was about to step onto it when he saw the Americans sitting there, holding each other, Micah's mother still weeping. He backed away without speaking.
At the meal, before the food was served, the two women who had cooked it made an announcement. They had decided that the surviving zheli boys would go with the Red Stone, as well as the stout woman who helped the Maos. The woman looked at Shan as the news was told, and nodded, as though she were apologizing again for what she had done to him in town. He smiled back, remembering what she had said, that she had lost her two sons to Chinese. Akzu stepped close to the fire, his face drawn, as if he were in pain. He had been that way, Shan suspected, since Jakli had been taken. His wife had not consulted him, Shan saw from the surprise on the headman's face.
The leathery old Kazakh looked from boy to boy and shook his head. "It's too dangerous, to go out with us," Akzu said, looking at his wife now. "And much hardship after that. I have buried enough children. They can go to the Chinese school. At least they'll be alive."
"With so many new sons," his wife replied in a strong, proud voice, "Red Stone can become a clan again."
Akzu stared grimly and shook his head again. "Woman," he began, then broke off as two figures appeared from the path by the stream, a woman and a boy. Shan saw in Akzu's face the same confusion he himself felt as he stared at them. They were strangers, but somehow familiar. The boy, smiling brilliantly, led the woman forward until they were a few feet in front of Akzu. The woman stepped behind the boy and began to gently stroke his head, with the serene affection of a mother.
Akzu gasped and looked at his wife, then turned away a moment and wiped his eye. As he did so Shan recognized the two figures. It was Batu, a clean, happy Batu in fresh, bright clothes, and the crazy woman who
had thrown stones at Shan. But she was crazy no longer. Her hair was washed and neatly braided, her dress free of the debris that had clung to it, and her eyes were no longer wild, but filled with hope and love for her new son. Malik, staring in disbelief, dropped the ball in his hand. The woman stepped forward to retrieve it, and tossed it to Batu, who caught it and laughed. It was a simple thing, a small sound of joy, but somehow it resonated through the clearing, drawing the attention of everyone there. Because, Shan realized, it was just a boy sound, a sound not of a tormented youth who had been running from killers but the sound of a child, and perhaps of an entire clan, learning about joy again.
The clearing was silent. Every eye fixed on the headman as he solemnly looked into the faces of each of the orphan boys. "It's going to take a lot of new saddles," Akzu declared at last, and his wife rushed forward to embrace him.
After the meal, when the sun had been down two hours and most of the camp was asleep, Shan went back to the ledge. Deacon was there alone, under the full moon. Not quite alone, for he had his singers with him, arrayed in a semicircle in front of him. Shan did not join him at first but returned to the cabin to speak to the Yakde Lama, then ventured back to the ledge.
The American did not speak when Shan arrived but moved to the side to make room for him.
The moon was so brilliant they could see the glow of the desert miles away. One or two of the crickets sang, uncertain chirps, as if frightened perhaps.
"There was a compass there," Shan said quietly. "A black metal compass." He reached into his pocket and handed it to the American.
Deacon took so long to reply that Shan thought he had not heard. "I gave it to him. He was brave and independent, but that day he first left with the zheli he asked where we would be. I told him and said we would always be there waiting for him." Deacon's voice cracked and he stopped speaking for several long moments. "I said, Take my compass, and I showed him on a map where Sand Mountain would be. So if he ever wanted to talk to us or shout out goodnight he would know which direction to face."
Shan closed his eyes and fought away the image of the terrified boy as Ko came for him with the bat and knife, pulling out the compass to know which way his parents were, which way to go to find safety.
They were silent again, for a long time. More crickets sounded. "Ironlegs won't talk," Deacon said absently. "Never has, since that night I caught him." The moon rose higher and brighter. From somewhere an owl called. And then, behind them, a twig broke. The Yakde Lama stepped into the moonlight, looking down, wearing a sad, shy smile.
"There is someone I want you to meet," Shan said.
"I know Khitai," Deacon replied in a hoarse voice.
The boy took a step closer.
"There is someone I want you to meet," Shan said again.
The boy took another step forward.
"You said you were going to buy a bicycle for him," Shan said.
The American made a choking sound and then a sob wracked his broad shoulders. He put his arms out, the boy ran forward into them, and the American finally cried. In long groaning sobs he cried, and the boy clung to him and cried too. Until finally they began to quiet. Because all the crickets were singing.
***
He was awakened by a light touch on his shoulder, just as the sun was rising. "Is it true," Gendun asked in almost a whisper, "that the Yakde still wishes to go to America?" Shan only nodded, and Gendun rose and moved back to a small group sitting by the trees. Shan threw his blanket off and rose. The camp was still quiet except for two Maos at the fire who had been on guard all night. He walked to the trees. Gendun, Lokesh and an old, nearly bald Tibetan were listening to Jowa as he drew with his finger in the earth, a map of how to go from Senge Drak to the Raven's Nest. Shan looked back to the stranger and froze.
It was the waterkeeper. The old lama seemed to sense Shan's stare. He looked up and nodded warmly, then patted the earth between himself and Lokesh, inviting Shan to sit. As Shan returned the waterkeeper's smile he remembered the lama's last words to him. There has to be a crack or nothing can get in, he had said at the clinic. In the end, that was all Shan had been able to do, to help open the cracks, first in Kaju, and then in the hard brittle shell around Prosecutor Xu.
Lokesh leaned toward Shan and explained that Gendun was going to take the waterkeeper to Senge Drak and then the waterkeeper would take Gendun to the hidden gompa.
Gendun was beaming at Shan when he looked up. "There's an old teacher at the Nest," he said with a tone of great satisfaction, "who knew my father."
"But, Rinpoche," Jowa said. "Who will go with the boy? The Yakde needs a teacher until he is ready to return."
Gendun put his hand on the waterkeeper's shoulder. "The gompa has been without their abbot for too many years."
"What is needed," the abbot of the Raven's Nest said in his raspy voice, "is someone younger and stronger. Someone trained as a monk but also trained in the ways of the world."
"The Americans spoke to me before they slept," Jowa said. "First they are going with the Eluosi, to help him buy land and build his cabin by the ocean. The boy will stay there. They can do their work there, they say, for a year or two at least. It would be a quiet place a Mao could come visit, when there are more samples to bring from the desert."
"It could be difficult to navigate from a gompa to the world, but perhaps more so to go from the world back to the life of a gompa," Gendun observed enigmatically.
Lokesh made a chuckling sound and Jowa cast him a puzzled glance.
"In the mornings," the waterkeeper said with a contented sigh, "the boy is always distracted until he eats. Just a bowl of porridge, then he studies his sutras." Jowa looked away, around the clearing, as if he expected to see another monk arriving at any moment. "But if he does well, a reward is following butterflies. One time we followed a butterfly for three hours. Someone young, with stronger legs than mine, could do it for six."
Lokesh chuckled again. Jowa looked to him, then to Shan.
The waterkeeper touched Jowa's leg. "He hates to wash his socks," the old abbot said. "Make him wash his socks."
Jowa froze and stared at the waterkeeper's fingers. "Rinpoche," he said in a whisper. "I am not-" He could not finish the sentence, but just stared at the lama's hand.
The waterkeeper leaned forward and put both hands on top of Jowa's, resting on the purba's legs. "I hear this Alaska is a wet place." He shook their hands, one on top of the other, hard, as if to make sure Jowa understood. "Dry him off sometimes."
The old lama and Jowa gazed at each other for a long time. "When he is ready," the abbot of the Raven's Nest said at last, "you must bring him back to us. There will be much work for him, in the new Tibet." He squeezed Jowa's hands again. "We will watch the oracle lake for signs."
As Jowa looked at Shan, the Tibetan's mouth slowly turned up in a grin, and Shan remembered a night that seemed long ago, standing under the moon in the Kunlun, when Jowa had spoken in despair about how the lamas would eventually disappear, about how there was no point in continuing without the lamas, and how he could never become a lama because of what the Chinese had made him. But there would be a new generation of lamas, a different breed, but lamas nonetheless, and Jowa would help nurture them.
The Yakde had risen and was standing at the fire. Fat Mao nodded at Gendun.
"We are going now," Gendun announced to Shan, and the Tibetans rose. The waterkeeper and the Yakde embraced, and the waterkeeper gestured for Jowa and embraced the Yakde's new teacher as well.
The lamas followed Fat Mao up the trail, and Shan walked the first hundred feet with them. There were no words to say. Fat Mao stepped to Shan's side, and with an awkward, sober expression, dropped something into his hand, then darted away. Gendun, then the waterkeeper, stood in front of Shan, each grinning brightly, and each in turn placed his palm over Shan's heart. Shan nodded gratefully and watched until they were out of sight, then looked into his hand. Fat Mao had given him a small, brightly colored stone, newly
washed with water.
In another hour the rest of the company was on the road, waiting for a truck that was taking Lokesh into Tibet. Lokesh was full of smiles and kept holding his bag tight against his chest. More than any of them, Lokesh was certain of where he was going and what he was doing. He was going to Mount Kailas, where he would complete a pilgrimage started a thousand years before to honor a dead mother and daughter. "It's going to be cold," Shan said awkwardly, and Lokesh just smiled. "There are dangerous places, I hear," Shan warned, "where you can lose your balance." Lokesh just kept smiling his crooked smile and embraced Shan, then moved onto the road as the Maos began calling him.
Sophie was grazing on the bank of the road, where Marco lay basking in the sun. As Shan sat, the Eluosi studied him as if measuring him for something. "I'll buy you a coat in Alaska. One of those big fur coats, for the winter that Russia sends there. And a fur cap. A ushanka. You'll look like a little bear. Johnny Bear." He smiled, the first smile Shan had seen since the terrible night on the parapet, and a new thought seemed to light Marco's eyes. "We'll build a sweat lodge in the winter. Take off your clothes and get heated like the desert. Then we run out and roll in the snow. Bare Johnny." Marco laughed a small laugh, then paused with a surprised expression, as if he had not expected to ever laugh again, and the laugh erupted once more, until he was holding his belly, and Shan laughed, and laughed some more, and marveled at it, a laugh of a kind he had not felt in years. And with it came a realization of why. Because to Shan Marco was not a teacher, not a prisoner, not a student, not a warrior. Marco was only a friend.
Water Touching Stone is-2 Page 59