Then, as Khodrak and Tuan reeled in confusion Lhandro would announce the people of the region would pay homage to the gompa and its important visitors by staging their own celebration. The Tibetans' long delayed spring festival would begin.
A whistle blew, and a moment later Shan heard boots pounding the earth outside. He settled back against the old wall. Once monks had hidden in here from Mongol invaders he told himself, bringing their most important thangkas and scriptures inside. The thought of the peche still lying on the shelves where they had been secreted, probably fifty years before, somehow comforted him. Treasures could still be hidden, and the arrogance of those who sought to usurp them could still be used as a weapon against them.
Shan watched the festival parade in his mind, as Lhandro had described it. In the front would be adorned yaks, all the yaks in the camp, which the dropka had finished decorating the night before. In the very front, festooned with red yarn and braids would be Jampa, led by Gyalo, the monk Khodrak had declared dead to Buddha, in a festival mask. Dropka in their traditional finery, some of it handed down for generations, would follow, some with hand drums and damyen, the traditional string instrument from the changtang. Then there would be dancers, adorned with some of the elaborate headdresses that had been used in cham dances, the dances traditionally performed to depict important historic or symbolic events. Finally, for good measure, children would lead their favorite sheep and dogs in the procession. It would be loud and chaotic, which was exactly what Shan and his friends had hoped for.
No one spoke. The boots pounded by again and receded. A voice droned over the loudspeaker, then there was a sound of another voice, loud but not amplified. Lhandro's. There was silence, then the sound of animals. The procession was circling the compound, past the dining hall and lhakang, past the medical station and the prayer wheel. Shan leaned forward, straining to hear. There was a beat that could have been drums, then another louder beat, and Tenzin touched his arm. Someone was tapping the wall outside. He slid clear of the secret door and it swung open. Somo, her face taut with anxiety, helped them out of the chamber.
Outside, as yaks in ornate harnesses streamed past, Lhandro and several others stepped into the doorway to block the view inside, calling out good-naturedly to their friends in the procession. "Lha gyal lo! Lha gyal lo!" The words echoed through the compound.
"Lha gyal lo!" a cracking voice cried behind him. He turned to see Nyma trying to put her hand over Lokesh's mouth.
They carried Lokesh out into the corridor, where Winslow was waiting, bent at the waist, his elbows on his thighs. Somo and Nyma positioned Lokesh onto the American's back then tied him in place with loops of heavy twine around Winslow's chest and waist. Lokesh began to laugh hoarsely. "My spirit horse has arrived," he exclaimed.
As the American stood, Somo draped a blanket around them, covering Winslow up to his chest, fastening the blanket with pins, then suddenly the dancers were there, six of them. Two in costumes of skeleton creatures, the others with headdresses of protector demons. Two of the costumes were made for two men, customarily with one on the other's shoulders, with four arms ending with hands with long claws. The dancers pressed about the doorway and paused as though resting, then slowly continued. But as they did one of the big creatures stopped in front of the door and Lhandro and Somo pulled off the headdress, revealing two of the dropka Shan had seen at the purbas' truck the day before. In less than a minute they had the costume sleeves over Winslow's and Lokesh's arms, the headdress itself balanced on Lokesh's shoulders. Winslow toppled forward out of the building, then found his legs and began dancing down the street. They could hear Lokesh call out his praises for the gods as they walked. Shan turned to see Tenzin being fitted into one of the skeleton costumes just as someone pulled the mask of an angry yak over his own head. Nyma picked up a long narrow bundle wrapped in the jacket she had been wearing. It was one of the peche she and Lokesh had been studying, Shan realized. She cast a knowing look toward Shan, then closed the secret door. They would leave the other peche inside, in the shelter of the fragrant closet.
He could barely see where he was going as he took a step forward, and discovered gratefully that someone was leading him outside, toward the other dancers. In a moment Shan was mimicking the jig of the others, moving three steps forward and one back then one sideways, slowly proceeding toward the gate
Sheep bleated behind him, and the normally moribund monks of Norbu began calling out encouragement for the children in the procession. When they reached the benches by the gate Shan saw that Winslow was slowing. If he fell and the mask dislodged all would be lost.
But they were nearly out, nearly at the gate. Shan stepped closed to Winslow to support him if necessary.
"Again." Padme's voice called over the speaker. "Our distinguished visitors have asked for the dancers again!" Much of the assembly cheered. Shan's heart sank.
He watched Winslow turn, the skull face seeming to stare directly at Shan. Then, following the lead of the Tibetans, as several monks snapped photographs, Shan, Winslow, and the abbot of Sangchi danced for the Bureau of Religious Affairs.
Thirty minutes later they pulled off the masks in the shelter of the tent by the purbas' truck. Winslow, sweat pouring from his face, looked numb with exhaustion but Lokesh could not stop grinning. He kept waving his arms as he had in the costume, laughing, as Somo and Nyma helped him off the American's back.
Only when Winslow straightened did he seem to notice that his clothes had been torn in the scuffle with the doctor. He lifted the remnants of his shirt pocket, which hung loose, ripped along both sides and examined them with a puzzled expression. "Did I have a card in there?" he asked in a hollow voice.
Shan replied with a slow shrug.
Winslow shrugged back. "To hell with them. We showed the bastards." He made a twirling gesture with his hand at his shoulder, like throwing a rope.
The purbas moved in urgent silence as the final element of the plan unfolded. The decorated yaks milled about the gate. The children played among the benches with the dogs. The dropka with the drums and damyen sat near the podium and played more music while the purbas wrapped Lokesh in a blanket and carried him into the truck, followed closely by Tenzin and Shan. Five minutes later they were pulling onto the road out of Norbu.
Abruptly, behind them a truck in the compound began honking its horn as if it were urgently trying to part the crowd and leave the gompa. Their own truck accelerated.
"They wouldn't chase the army in a truck, not across the ridges," Lhandro said in a despairing voice as the sound of the horn grew closer. "They must be coming for us."
"Somo! Where's Somo!" one of the purbas cried out.
As one of the white howler trucks sped out of the gompa yard Shan's heart sank. He threw a blanket over Tenzin and Lokesh, and watched as the truck overtook them.
But the vehicle did not stop. Five of Tuan's howlers sat inside, impatiently waving them aside as the white truck sped past.
As their old truck slowly rumbled back onto the road a hand appeared on the back gate and Somo swung inside, her face a strange mask of pride and fear.
"I didn't understand why they gave up so easy, why they didn't at least chase after those soldiers," she said anxiously. "So I stayed close to the speaker's platform. Padme ran out with a facsimile, stood by as the officials read it with Khodrak. At first Khodrak just stood there, saying words that no one wearing a robe should ever say. Then he changed, and smiled; said the army would learn now, that perhaps the abbot of Sangchi had been a prisoner they had stole from the army, but now the army had a prisoner who was his by right. He had proof from the old Tibetan books. It would be a grander victory even than discovering the fugitive abbot, he said. There is no one else in all of Tibet who better represents the old oppressive ways, he said." Somo cast a sorrowful look at Shan, then Tenzin. "What a lesson we can make at Yapchi, Khodrak said. What a victory will be ours."