"No. But he came to our village three times. Once, just after it was recovered in Lhasa, after Nyma told about the oracle's words. Then that time two months ago, and again last month, when he asked about details of the salt caravan, and he gave me his map so we would know the places where he left supplies, so we could avoid going near any settlements. He said when you came you would be on horses. He said we could keep the horses." Horses were prized possessions, beyond the reach of many herders and farmers.
"At the lake the herder spoke about the purba general the knobs are hunting. The Tiger. Did he help? Is he involved with the stone?" It might explain much. Perhaps the army and knobs were not after them at all. The scent of such a senior resistance leader would make the soldiers ravenous.
"I don't know. Maybe. One night Drakte met someone in the rocks above our village. I followed, to help keep guard. Drakte would not let me close. But I could hear a voice like I have never known. Deep like a growl but not exactly. Like someone roaring in a whisper. Drakte wouldn't say who it was, but later I found out that this Tiger had something broken in his voice box once, by a knob baton."
Dremu was sitting on his blanket as they approached the eastern trail. He did not greet them, did not pause to gloat, but simply tied his blanket to his saddle and trotted toward the east, ahead of the caravan.
It was midafternoon when a cluster of houses, animal sheds, and ragged fields came into view, a small rongpa village at the head of the narrow gravel road that the caravan would need to follow for several miles to reach the next pass to the north. Both the Tibetans and the animals seemed to quicken their pace as they approached the village, as if in anticipation of a warm meal and perhaps shelter from the steady, chill wind that had begun to blow.
But the village was abandoned. Tables in front of two houses held bowls of cold tea and tsampa. A blanket was spread on the dirt track in front of another, littered with the remnants of walnut shells. A small fire smoldered by the door of another of the decrepit buildings, its sheep dung fuel left to smolder when someone had dropped the crude leather bellows at its side. A large mastiff tied to a post barked loudly, not at the strangers arriving in the village but toward the eastbound road.
Lhandro halted the caravan, his eyes filled with alarm, then quickly ordered them back up the trail, behind the cover of the hillock they had just crossed, until he and Shan explored the empty village. At the first house, Lhandro stopped and called out a greeting, then stepped into its open door when no one answered. He moved into its shadows and reappeared a moment later wearing a grim expression, staring at a frame of sticks, ten inches square, that hung from the door-frame. Yarns of many colors had been stretched across the sticks, and it twisted in the wind. It was a spirit catcher, meant to trap evil spirits that wandered too near the house.
"No one," Lhandro said, as he scanned the remaining houses, then the surrounding hills. "Not even that damned Dremu," he added, as if now he blamed the Golok for emptying the village. "Bandits could do this, take the people until they ransom themselves."
The sudden sound of footsteps from behind caused Lhandro to spin about, crouching as if to meet an attack. Lokesh emerged from between two houses, followed a moment later by Nyma. Lokesh walked past them silently, his head cocked in curiosity.
"Not bandits! Don't you recognize it?" the young nun cried. "It's what the knobs do sometimes," she added in a tormented tone. "If they suspect someone of subversive activity, they just round up all his neighbors and question them, keep them locked up while their animals are starving and crops are dying. Eventually someone remembers something to implicate the suspect, true or otherwise."
The four of them walked uneasily down the track that led out of the village, moving in shadows when they could, following the rough road around a huge outcropping where they discovered a red utility vehicle parked, empty, at the side of the road. It was the kind of truck few Tibetans could afford, the kind primarily used in government service. As they stared uncertainly at the vehicle a scream echoed over the rocks. Shan hesitated, not certain where the sound had come from, then saw Lokesh jogging toward a narrow, two-foot-wide gap in the huge rock ledge that lined the road. Shan quickly followed as another loud cry split the still air, Nyma and Lhandro close behind.
The short passage opened into a natural, grassy bowl where slopes intersected at the base of the ledge. They had found the inhabitants of the village, and Shan realized the cries had not been from fear or pain, but excitement. Nearly fifty people sat on the slope or stood along the edge of the small flat clearing at the bottom of the bowl. Someone shrieked in surprise, another laughed. Not at Shan or his companions, for no one had seemed to notice their arrival. The population of the village was watching a man mounted on a huge, angry yak, one hand in the air, the other clutching a leather strap that had been fastened around the belly of the creature. The animal was bucking and twisting and, as Shan watched, it reared its broad head with a loud bellow that caused several children to run toward the back of the crowd. The animal was magnificent, probably not far removed in its breeding from the drong, the massive wild yaks that still roamed the Tibetan wilderness.
But Shan's eyes did not linger on the powerful creature, for as surprised as he was to see the rampaging yak, he was even more startled to see its rider. The man was long-boned and lean, with straw-colored hair that hung over his ears. The rider seemed to be conversing with the yak, for each time the animal bellowed the man yelled out strange syllables. "Ya! Ya!!!!" the man called for no apparent reason, then "Yi ha!" and "Yo!"
"Listen to him," Lhandro said at his side. "The man must be in great pain. Who would make a goserpa do such a thing?" he asked in alarm, as if it were a form of torture. "Goserpa." Nyma repeated the word twice, gaping at the man. It meant yellow head, one of the terms Tibetans used for Westerners. To most of those in the region, Shan knew, seeing a Westerner would be as rare as seeing one of the nearly extinct wild yaks.
Suddenly the Westerner was thrown clear of the furious animal, his legs flying in the air in front of him, as if he were sitting. But somehow his hand still clutched the strap, and when he dropped he found his seat on the yak again. Three large men stood anxiously at the front of the crowd with ropes, as if trying to find a way to capture the yak. A small pale Tibetan in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie stood by a large boulder at the far side of the clearing, every few seconds scrambling behind the rock then slowly reappearing, staring at the rider with a terrified expression, timidly raising his hand every few seconds as though to get the foreigner's attention.
With a sudden mighty heave the yak arched his back and the rider was off, shooting in a long arc through the air, arms and legs still working frantically as if the Westerner expected to return to the animal. But as the crowd watched in abrupt silence he soared across the little bowl and slammed into the ground with a loud groan. He lay flat on his back, without sign of life, as the three men with the ropes frantically closed around the yak. The little man in the suit produced a pair of spectacles from his pocket and slowly stepped forward to retrieve a black cap from the ground. Shan took a hesitant step toward the limp Westerner as Lokesh rushed past him.
The Westerner began convulsing. His hands clutched his belly and his chest began heaving. The little Tibetan in the suit shouted angrily at the three men with ropes, not in Tibetan but in Chinese. "Public Security will know about this!" he screeched, suddenly assuming an important air, shaking the black hat toward them. "You fools! People from Lhasa will have to come! You'll see what happens when a foreigner-" the man stopped as he stared at the blond man on the ground. Lokesh, too, stopped, the worry on his face evaporating. The Westerner was laughing.