Mandarin Gate (31 page)

“When there is justice for the boy it will end!” Jigten snapped. The eyes of the wiry dropka held the same wild gleam Shan had seen when he had first cornered him in Baiyun. Shan paused, not sure if he had heard correctly. “The boy?”

“Lung Wi. He was my friend. He died because of this one!”

“Surely you are mistaken, Jigten. Surely you can’t know that.”

“I know! It’s why I made sure Genghis didn’t drive. I heard you say this bastard was in Chamdo.”

Dakpo had pushed himself against the wall, his face twisted in pain and fear. Meng appeared as Shan stepped in front of the monk, facing Jigten.

“You are wrong, Jigten. I didn’t say it was Dakpo. And this is Tibet. Monks don’t kill.”

The shepherd greeted the words with a sneer. “This is Chinese Tibet. Everything is backward,” he said, and gestured to Shan and Meng as if they somehow proved his point.

“Real monks don’t kill,” Shan amended, and pointed Jigten to a milking stool. “Sit down. Tell me about the boy.”

The shepherd muttered a curse, still glaring at Dakpo, but complied. The Jade Crows had laughed when Jigten had first appeared, he explained, asking if he could help with their trucks. But he had persisted, coming back to the garage again and again, cleaning up, washing trucks, letting them treat him like their slave. The son of the gang’s chieftan had taken to lingering in the garage when the others left, and began to take him for rides in the trucks. They had discovered they were only a few years apart in age, discovered a like interest in mahjong and the mechanics of the truck motors. Before long the boy was teaching Jigten how to drive.

“Sometimes we would sneak away and shoot at marmots with his slingshot. That’s what happened the day his father told him to drive the small truck to meet with someone, to deliver a message. He picked me up on the other side of the hill and we raced over the road, bouncing in the ruts, laughing. He liked to pretend he was running away from the police, like in some movie. We got to his meeting place early and walked up the ridge to shoot at marmots. We were stalking a big one through some rocks when over the rise we saw two men on the dirt road below. One was a knob and the other was a monk with a bicycle.

“I backed away, and told him to hide but he said it was no problem, that the monk was the one he was doing business with and he stood up and waved at the monk.”

Shan shut his eyes a moment. “Genghis was suddenly sick. You did that.”

“There’s a little red root that grows up on the ridges. I put some in his tea. He’s fine by now.”

“But why wait all this time?” Meng asked.

“Because he didn’t know that the boy was murdered,” Shan said heavily. “Not until he eavesdropped on Lung Tso and me.”

“A monk did the killing you said. I saw that monk with the bicycle. I went back there,” Jigten explained. “I went back to see if I could find something more about that monk and the knob.” Jigten pointed at Dakpo. “And I saw him there, on the bicycle again.”

Dakpo murmured something, holding his ribs.

Shan stepped closer. “I’m sorry?”

“There’s a dozen.” The monk’s mouth twisted in pain as he spoke. “The gompa has a dozen bicycles. Any monk can take one when he needs it. I borrowed one to go back along that trail where the Lung boy died.”

“To do what?”

Dakpo gazed at Jigten. “To find something more about that monk and the knob,” he said, repeating the dropka’s words.

“It was you I saw that day at the convent,” Shan said.

The young monk nodded. “I know Chenmo.”

Shan considered his words. “You mean she told you a monk was a killer, because the American had told her.”

Dakpo grabbed the gau around his neck and nodded again. “I found a gun,” he whispered, glancing fearfully at Meng. Shan looked up at her and she nodded and left the building. “Tell me about it,” he said.

It had been hidden inside a prayer wheel on a pilgrim path that was seldom used, the monk explained. But Jamyang had convinced him that all such paths needed clearing, and Dakpo went up the slope to do so whenever he could get away. “The wheel made a terrible clatter when I finally got it moving. I pushed on it, and the top came off. I didn’t want to touch it.”

“What happened to it?”

“I didn’t do anything that day, nothing until Chenmo told me what the American said about the killer. Then I went up in the night and threw it into a crevasse.”

“But why go to Chamdo so abruptly?” Shan asked.

“I clean out files all the time in the office at the monastery, because of the auditors who come. I found a message from weeks ago with nothing but a date on it, the date of the full moon next week. It had been sent electronically to an address that said CTPI, with numbers after those letters like a code. The Bureau of Religious Affairs has been trying to train us to use computers better. I was able to investigate on the computer and found the message had been sent to the Institute.” There was fear in the monk’s voice now. “I had never heard of it. I had to find out what it meant, why it was sent.”

In the silence that followed more trucks went by, groaning with full loads. “Tell me this, Dakpo,” Shan asked, “who at Chegar does business with the Jade Crows? Who works with the purbas?”

Dakpo would not look at Shan. He gripped his gau tighter. “There are three of us,” he said in a hollow voice.

“Who other than you? The purbas knew of the foreigners. Did they tell you about them?”

“There are three of us,” Dakpo repeated, and would say no more.

*   *   *

It was nearly midnight before he lowered himself onto a pile of straw opposite Dakpo. Much later he woke to the sound of straining engines. He did not have to rise to know from the repetitive movement of headlights across the back wall that another convoy was passing by. Beside him on the straw was Meng, asleep, nestled against his body.

He turned and through the open door could see the trucks, at least twenty, climbing up the mountain pass. It was another prisoner convoy, curling around the mountain like a serpent. The demon that was eating Tibet.

Meng rolled over, resting her hand on his chest. She had put her tunic on against the chill air and the red enamel star on its collar caught the moonlight. The demon he slept with.

*   *   *

The moon had risen when he stirred again, then abruptly sat up. Jigten sat on the stool staring at Dakpo, asleep on the straw.

The shepherd felt Shan’s gaze. “I will take him to Lung Tso. Lung will make him tell us about the killer.”

“I don’t think he knows. There are three, he said. It’s why he went to Chamdo, to try to discover why one of the others would be communicating with the Institute.”

“Three, but not him. That leaves two. He can tell us and Lung will get the truth from them.”

“With bamboo splints and barbed wire batons? No. That’s your anger speaking. You would not torture an innocent monk.”

“If I told Lung, he would. One of them killed his nephew and his brother.”

“One of them didn’t.”

Jigten’s anger had not faded. It was just directed at Shan now. “I told you,” he growled in a low voice. “This is Chinese Tibet. One Tibetan commits a crime and ten get punished.”

“No,” Shan said. “That is not my Tibet. It not Dakpo’s Tibet. It is not the Tibet of your mother, or of your clan.”

Jigten hung his head. “My mother would say one of those hailstorms will come again from the mountain and take the killer. Is that what you mean?”

“Something like that.”

The shepherd studied Shan in silence, then stepped to Dakpo, pulled up the monk’s blanket and left.

There was movement at his side. Meng was also studying him. “You amaze me, Shan. All you have been through and still so innocent. You told me yourself this case will never go to trial. Yet you think somehow justice will be done. There is only one way it gets done in this case.”

“I’m not sure what you are suggesting.”

“I’m saying there are cases where the only justice is a quick bullet.”

Shan spun about to face her. “No! Never! Don’t you understand? It would be against everything the old Tibetans believe.” Lokesh’s admonishment had shaken him, had never been far from his consciousness since they had spoken on the mountainside. “If I killed someone or arranged someone’s death there would be a gap between them and me I could never bridge. Lokesh wouldn’t live with me. I would never again have the confidence of the lamas. If I couldn’t live with them I don’t know if I could live with myself. You have to promise me. No bullets. No killing. I will never be involved in another killing, no matter how deserved it might be.”

Meng leaned over and traced a finger along his cheek. “You’re a complex man, Shan. If you corner the killer he will try to kill you.”

“Promise me, Xiao Meng.”

She smiled sleepily. “What did you call me?”

He blushed. The affectionate term of address had left his lips unbidden. He had not spoken it to a woman in decades. “Promise me.”

She was still smiling. “Of course. I promise. No bullet.”

“Never a bullet.”

“Never a bullet,” she confirmed, then nestled closer to him.

*   *   *

He found her at dawn, studying the road map on the hood of her car. Her cell phone was in her hand. “I called for the convoy schedule,” she explained with a worried expression. “There’s a steady flow all day.” She gazed at the truck. “If a security detail took an interest in the truck there would be no way to explain the injured monk.” She pointed to the map. “There’s a back road. It will come out on the highway just north of Lhadrung. No military bases. No police stations. Just two little villages. But the old man doesn’t know if the bridge at the second town is strong enough for the truck.”

“It’s gone,” came a voice over her shoulder. Jigten stepped between them. “Washed out five months ago.” He traced a finger along a dotted line that circled the last town. “There’s an old dirt track with a ford across the stream. We just loop around and come back just above Chimpuk.”

Shan nodded slowly, then paused, pointing to the second town on the map. “You mean Shijingshan.”

“The Chinese renamed it years ago. Chinese maps have to have Chinese names, so for Chinese travelers it’s Paradise Hills. Shijingshan. To Tibetans it’s still Chimpuk.”

Shan reached into his pocket and unfolded the paper Meng had given him the day before. They were going to Jamyang’s birthplace.

*   *   *

It was nearly noon when they crossed the shallow ford and pulled the vehicles to the side of the gravel track. The rough ride had been painful for Dakpo, and when the rear door was opened he appeared to have been beaten again. His prayer beads were pressed into his palm, his knuckles white. Without being asked, Jigten went for water as Shan changed the bandage on the monk’s head. They washed his wounds and gave him cold soup before leaving him resting peacefully on his makeshift bed.

Half an hour later they stopped on a low hill over Chimpuk village. The rundown little settlement was so remote that it showed little evidence of China other than its signs. On the faded board announcing the town’s Chinese name the final character had been scratched out so that it said just Shijing. Paradise.

“Who are we?” Meng asked as they parked the truck by a goat pen at the edge of town, discomfort obvious in her voice. She had left her car outside of town and changed into civilian clothes. “Not a place that gets many strangers.”

Dogs began barking. An old woman cutting the long skirt hairs of a yak, which the Tibetans braided into rope, stopped and stared at them. A man sitting on a stool with a tea churn was stroking a huge black mastiff that bolted toward them, barking. They had no hope of being inconspicuous.

“We are friends of the lama Jamyang,” Shan called out, then stood still as the mastiff reached them. It lunged and bit his ankle.

A hearty laugh rose from the man on the stool as Shan grabbed his ankle. “Stay in the truck,” he said as he pulled himself up, leaning on a staff. “That’s what everyone else does when they’re lost. Stay in the truck and yell. Safer that way.” He limped forward and dispersed the dog with a shake of his staff.

“We’re not lost,” Shan ventured. “We’re looking for the family of lama Jamyang.”

The old man eyed Meng suspiciously before turning to Shan. “Then you’re lost and don’t even know it.” He sighed and pointed with his staff to Shan’s ankle. Blood was oozing from the dog bite. Gesturing Shan to his stool, he exposed the wound, rinsed it first with water then, despite Shan’s protests, with
chang
, barley beer. Before he spoke he dabbed the wound with some honey and rolled down the pant’s leg. “She won’t have much to do with strangers,” he declared, and pointed to a modest one-story house at the far edge of town that sat back from the others.

It was a well-kept traditional farmhouse, with faded mantras painted under the window and a traditional sun and moon sign over the entry. By the open door stood a small loom where someone had been weaving the heavy fabric used for cargo sacks in yak caravans. An aged woman stepped out of the shadows. Her face was as frayed as the black apron she wore. The reluctant nod she offered shamed Shan. She did not want them but the traditions of Tibetan hospitality would not allow her to turn them away.

“You are of Jamyang’s blood?” he asked as she gestured them to sit on a carpet in the center of her living quarters. The tidy little house had a half wall dividing it. Come autumn her livestock would take shelter on the other side.

“I am his mother’s sister. Everyone else.”—she made a vague gesture toward the window, or perhaps the sky—“everyone else is gone.”

“My companion is Meng,” he explained. “I am called Shan.”

She tossed a few pieces of dried dung on her brazier and set a kettle on it. “A friend of Jamyang’s you said.”

Shan hesitated, looking around the chamber. Opposite its small kitchen area was a
kang
, a wide sleeping platform. On one side of the kang was a rolled sleeping pallet. The other side was covered with a faded rug woven to resemble the skin of a tiger, before a small altar that held a bronze Buddha and an old gau.

“I met him when he settled in Lhadrung County last year,” Shan explained. “He was teaching shepherds and restoring an old shrine. He was a gentle man, a good teacher.”