The Skull Mantra (36 page)

It was surprisingly warm inside. Panels of yak-hair cloth, the same used for the tent itself, hung along one side to create a private dressing chamber. An ancient rug, once red and yellow but reduced to shades of soiled brown, served as the floor, bed, and chair for the tent's inhabitants. A three-legged iron brazier sat near the center, holding a huge kettle over smoldering embers of a wood fire. A small wooden table made with pegs and hinges for disassembly when moving camp held two incense burners and a small bell. Their altar.

Ten
khampas
were huddled, wary as deer, on the far side of the altar, as though it might protect them. The six women and four men, appearing to span four generations, were dressed in thick, dirty woolen skirts and aprons of faded red and brown stripes and heavy
chubas
that looked to have weathered many years of storms. A child of perhaps six wandered out of the group, clad in a length of yak felt draped around his body and tied at the waist with twine; a woman pulled the child into her skirt with a desperate look toward Shan. Necklaces of small silver coins, interspersed with red and blue beads, were the only adornment on the women. All their faces, male and female, were round, their cheekbones high, their eyes intelligent and scared, their skin smudged with smoke, their hands thick with calluses. One frail gray-haired woman leaned against a tent pole near the rear.

There was dead silence as everyone stared across the smoky chamber. The man in the vest, now holding the baby, still in its fleece cocoon, entered and uttered a single syllable. The knot of
khampas
slowly dispersed, the men sitting around the brazier, the women moving toward three heavy logs that held cooking utensils. The man, apparently a clan leader, gestured for his visitors to sit on the carpet.

The women chipped pieces from a large brick of black tea and dropped them into the kettle. Uncertain what to say, but compelled by their tradition of hospitality, the men talked of their herds. A ewe had birthed triplets. The poppies had been thick on the southern slopes, one of them said, which meant that this year's calves would be strong. Another asked if the visitors had any salt.

“I am looking for the Dronma clan,” Shan said as he accepted a bowl of buttered tea. On the table he noticed a framed photograph, face down, as though dropped in haste. As he leaned toward the table he noticed that the hanging panels at the back of the tent were moving.

“There are many clans in the mountains,” the old man said. He called for more tea, as though to distract Shan.

Shan picked up the photo. One of the women spoke urgently in the
khampa
dialect, and the younger men seemed to tense. The photo was sticking an inch out of the frame. It was Chairman Mao. Underneath he could see another image, the beads of a rosary and a red robe visible beneath Mao. It was a common practice in Tibet to keep a photo of the Dalai Lama in a conspicuous spot to bless the home, to be quickly covered by one of Mao when government callers arrived. Years earlier, mere possession of an image of the Dalai Lama had guaranteed imprisonment. As the woman noisily served tea to Feng, Shan pushed down the photo of Mao to finish covering the secret image, then stood it up on the table, facing away from them.

He sat on the rug, conspicuously crossing his legs under him in the lotus fashion favored by the Tibetans. During the Demolish the Four Olds campaign Tibetans had been ordered not to sit cross-legged. ‘This clan has a son named Balti,” Shan continued. “He worked in Lhadrung.”

“Families stay together here,” the herder observed. “We don't know much about the other clans.” The
khampas
looked down fretfully, watching the coals. Shan recognized the nervousness. No Chinese came who was not a wool buyer or a birth inspector. Shan drained his bowl and stood, surveying the
khampas,
none of whom would look at him. He stepped toward the hanging panel and pulled it aside.

Two young women were sitting behind it. They were pregnant.

“They are not inspectors,” said one of the girls as she boldly pushed past him. She couldn't have been more than eighteen. “Not with a priest,” she said with a defiant smile toward Yeshe. She helped herself to some of the tea. “I know the Dronma clan.”

One of the older women snapped out a complaint.

The girl ignored her. “Doesn't matter. No one could tell where to find them. Too few for a full camp. All they can do is work the herder tents, in the high valleys.”

“Where?”

“Say a prayer for my baby,” she said to Yeshe, patting her stomach. “My last baby died. Say a prayer.”

Yeshe looked at Shan uncomfortably. “I am not qualified.”

“You have a priest's eyes. You are from a gompa, I can tell.”

“A long time ago.”

“Then you can say a prayer. My name is Pemu.” She cast a defiant glance around the chamber. “They want me to say Pemee, to make it sound Chinese. Because of the Four Olds campaign. But I am Pemu.” As if to punctuate her statement she pulled a pin from her hair, releasing a long braid into which turquoise beads had been woven. “I need a prayer. Please.”

Yeshe cast an awkward glance at Shan, then moved outside, as though to flee. The girl followed him. One of the women threw open the flap to watch. The girl called to Yeshe without response, then ran past him and knelt in front of him. As he tried to sidestep her, she grabbed his hand and put it on her head. The action seemed to paralyze him. Then slowly he withdrew the rosary from his pocket and began speaking to the girl.

The action pierced the tension in the tent. The clan began preparing dinner. One of the women began to mix
tsampa
with tea to make
pak,
a
khampa
staple. A pot was put on the fire with mutton stew. A woman pulled blackened loaves from the ashes. “Three strikes bread,” she explained as she handed a piece to Shan. “One, two, three,” she counted as she struck the loaf against a rock. On the third strike the outer shell of ashes and carbon fell away, revealing a golden crust. Shan was offered the first slice. He broke it in half and with a bow of his head solemnly placed one piece on the makeshift altar.

The herder in the vest cocked his head in curiosity at Shan. “The Dronma,” he said, “they follow the sheep. In the spring the yaks come down from the high land where they
wintered. The sheep go up. Look for small tents. Look for prayer flags.” He drew a map of likely locations, seven in all, in Shan's pad.

As he did so Shan became aware of a new sound, from another tent. It was one of the rituals he had learned at the 404th. Although the roads were already muddy, someone was praying fervently for rain.

Feng brought blankets from the truck and the three men slept with the children, rising when the goats began to bleat for the dawn milking. Shan folded one of the blankets and left it as a gift at the entrance of the camp.

Inside the truck, sleeping on the back seat, was Pemu.

“I will go with you,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “My mother was Dronma clan. I will go and see my cousins.” She made room for Shan and offered him a piece of bread.

The distances were not that great. She did not need their truck to see her cousins. Perhaps, Shan considered, it was a test, a challenge. A Public Security squad would never accept a passenger.

They had covered three of the valleys by midmorning and scanned the slopes with binoculars, to no avail. The skies began to darken. The herders had prayed for rain. Suddenly he understood why.

“Yesterday,” he said to the girl, who watched intently out the window, “your people saw a helicopter, didn't they?”

“The helicopter is always bad,” she said, as if there was but one in existence. “When I was young the helicopter came.”

Shan looked at her expectantly.

Pemu chewed her lip. “It was a very bad day. At first we thought the Chinese had a new machine to make thunder. But it wasn't thunder. They came to earth by the camp. I was only four.” She looked out the window again. “It was a very bad day,” she repeated with a distant, vacant stare.

Pemu moved to the edge of the seat as they approached an outcropping along the path. When the track moved into a small, rugged canyon she asked to get out. “To clear rocks,” she said. “I will walk in front.”

But Shan saw no rocks. Feng's hand instinctively moved to his pistol, and suddenly Shan realized that she had come
to protect them, to use herself as a shield. After a moment, Feng, too, seemed to understand. His hand moved away from his holster, and he concentrated on keeping the vehicle as close to the girl as possible. They moved slowly, in brittle silence.

Shan thought he saw a glimmer of metal ahead. The girl began singing, loudly. The glimmer was gone. It could have been a gun. It could have been a particle of crystal catching the sun.

As they left the canyon she returned to the truck, with a new, haggard look. She began rubbing her belly. She started singing again, to her baby now.

“My uncle is in India,” she said suddenly. “In Dharam-sala, with the Dalai Lama. He writes me letters. He says the Dalai Lama tells us to follow the ways of peace.”

They almost missed the small black tent in the fifth valley, in the shelter of a ledge. It took nearly an hour for Pemu to lead Shan and Yeshe up the steep switchbacks that led to the camp. Three sheep were tethered to a stake near the tent. Red ribbons were tied to their ears. A huge long-haired dog, a herder's mastiff, sat across the entrance to the tent. It reacted only with its eyes, watching them intently, then bared its teeth when they reached the smoldering campfire.

“Aro! Aro!” Pemu called out, taking a tentative step toward the hearth.

“Who would it be then?” a ragged voice called from inside. A small swarthy face appeared just above the dog. “You're right, Pok,” the man said to the animal. “They don't look so fearsome.” He laughed and disappeared for a moment.

He came out on a crutch. His left leg was gone below the knee. “Pemu?” he said, squinting at the girl. “Is it you, cousin?” He seemed choked with emotion.

The girl produced a loaf of bread from a bag around her waist and handed it to him. “This is Harkog,” she said, introducing him to Shan. “Harkog and Pok are responsible for this range. We're not sure which is in charge.”

Harkog's mouth opened in a crooked smile that showed only three teeth. “Sugar?” he asked Shan abruptly. “Got sugar?”

Shan explored the bag Yeshe had brought from the truck and found an apple, brown with age. The man accepted it with a frown, then brightened for a moment. “Tourists? Big power place on the mountain. I can take you. Secret trail. Go there, say prayers. When you go home you will make babies. Always works. Ask Pemu,” he added with a hoarse laugh.

“We're looking for your brother. We want to help him.”

The man's carefree expression disappeared. “Got no brother. My brother's gone from this world. Too late to help Balti.”

Shan's heart sank. “Balti has died?”

“No more Balti,” Harkog said, and began tapping his forehead with his fist, as if in pain.

Pemu pulled the tent flap open. Inside there was a vague human shape, a shell of a man with a gaunt face and eyes like the sockets of a skull. “Just his body is here,” Harkog said. “Not much left. For days now. He stays awake. Night and day, with his mantras.” He studied the rosary hanging from Yeshe's belt. “Holy man?” he said with new interest.

Yeshe did not reply, but stepped closer to the tent. “Balti Dronma. We must speak with you.”

The brother did not protest as Shan and Yeshe entered the tent and sat down.

Pemu stepped in behind them. “He's more dead than alive,” she whispered in horror.

“We have questions,” Shan said quietly. “About that night.”

“No,” Harkog protested. “He's with me. All those nights.”

“What nights?” Shan asked.

“Whatever nights you ask about.”

“No,” Shan said patiently. “That last night in Lhadrung he was with Prosecutor Jao. When Jao was murdered.”

“Don't know nothing about murder,” Harkog muttered.

“The prosecutor. Jao. He was murdered.”

Harkog seemed not to hear. He was staring at his brother. “He ran. He ran and ran. Like a jackal he ran. For days he ran. Then one morning I see an animal under a rock. Smells
like a dying goat, the dog said. I reached under and pulled him out.”

“We came from Lhadrung to understand what he saw that night.”

“You do mantra,” Harkog said suddenly to Yeshe. “Protect against demons while he sleep. Call back his soul so he can rest. Afterwards maybe he talk.”

Yeshe did not reply, but awkwardly sat next to Balti.

Satisfied, Harkog left the tent.

“Like you blessed my baby,” Pemu said to Yeshe.

Yeshe looked beseechingly to Shan. “I'm sorry,” he said twice, once to Shan, and once to the woman. “I am not able to do this thing.”

“I remember what the woman said at the garage,” Shan reminded him. “Your powers aren't lost, they have only lost their focus.”

Pemu pressed the back of his hand against her forehead.

Yeshe emitted a little groan. “Why?”

“Because he is dying.”

“And I am supposed to work a miracle?”

“The medicine he needs can't be provided by a doctor,” Shan said.

Pemu still held Yeshe's hand. He looked at her with a new serenity. Perhaps, Shan considered, a miracle was already underway.

Shan sat with the herdsman outside as Pemu stoked the fire and fixed tea. A clap of thunder shook the air about them. A curtain of rain pushed up the valley. As Harkog fixed a sheltering canvas over the fire circle, a chant began inside.

Shan listened to the drone of Yeshe's chant for an hour, then left to bring back Feng and the food in the truck. The sergeant paused as they were leaving the vehicle, and ran back. “Have to hide the truck,” he said over his shoulder. He did not say from whom.