Shan looked back toward the horizon. The mountain, and the valley beyond, was their destination, the home of the chenyi deity.

"You speak like it was alive," Winslow said uneasily.

Dremu winced and rolled his eyes at Shan, as though asking to be saved from foreigners who were ignorant about mountain deities, then turned and started down the trail.

"The man you made a bargain with is dead," Shan said to his back. "You've been paid. It's not far now. Lhandro and Nyma can take me the rest of the way."

The Golok slowly turned, anger back in his face. But an odd melancholy quickly replaced it.

"I have little of value," Shan said, fighting the temptation to touch the ivory rosary in his pocket. "These old binoculars are the most valuable thing I own. But you can have them, and ride on, leave us. Just tell me one thing. Why are you angry at that mountain?"

Dremu walked to the edge of the ledge they stood on, facing the mountain that dominated the northern horizon. "I spent a month there once with my father."

Shan stepped to his side.

"Those Lujun troops," Dremu said with a much quieter voice, "after what they did in Yapchi Valley they passed through my family's lands. In those days Goloks were to be feared. The Chinese knew they had to show respect or they would lose men. So like everyone else they paid their respect and moved on. They had orders to hurry home."

"You mean they paid tribute," Shan suggested.

Dremu nodded. "It was a tax everyone paid. So Goloks wouldn't shoot from the top of gorges, and would make sure others didn't. It was just a business. But my people didn't know what those Chinese had done in Yapchi. A week later when we learned of the massacre, my family was shamed. We wouldn't have taken that gold if we had known," he said, speaking as if it had just happened. "So my grandfather's father rode out to find those Chinese, to get the eye back or return the gold piece he had taken from the Chinese." He fixed Shan with a sour expression. "To claim his honor back," he added in a defiant tone, and began fingering a small leather pouch that hung beside his prayer gau.

"It was very brave," Shan replied solemnly.

"They shot him. The general did it himself. They had Tibetans helping with horses who saw. Shot him in the head and laughed. Then they hired a dropka to take the body back to us. They had sewed the gold into his pocket. Later monks came and made my family go to Yapchi and apologize to the survivors, and help them build new houses. Even other Goloks hated my family afterwards. There were stories about how old monks came in the summer to Yapchi, and sick Goloks once would go there to be healed. But all the healing stopped after that because the people there hated the Goloks so much." He gazed toward the horizon again. "Of course we rode with bandits after that." He kicked a stone off the ledge.

"Those Lujun soldiers destroyed my family," he said. "My uncles rode away with bandits, or disappeared in cities. My father took me to that mountain one summer, looking for a monk, any monk who could help our family out of the blackness that had come over it. But by then there were no monks to be found anymore, so he meditated for days and days, trying to reach that Yapchi deity. But it only made him more sad. He knew the mountain was punishing him. He died not long after and my mother went to work in a city scrubbing Chinese floors. I was fourteen and had my own horse," Dremu added, as if it explained why he had stayed behind.

The three men stood with the cool wind washing over them. It was mingled with the vaguest hint of flowers, like a subtle incense wafting over the plain. The Tibetans used incense to attract deities. Perhaps it was simply something in the air, Shan thought, that had caused first Winslow, then Dremu to speak of their tragedies. Shan was certain the Yapchi rongpa knew nothing of Dremu's story- and he had no idea of how they would react if they did know. He suspected that Winslow seldom shared his tale with anyone, even other Americans.

"What do you mean the eye?" Winslow asked Dremu. "You said something about an eye. And the Lujun?"

The Golok gestured at Shan, who winced. He began to explain about the eye and the valley. But it seemed the closer he got to Yapchi the less he understood about the eye.

The story brought the sadness back to Winslow's face. He gazed at each of his companions in turn, and seemed about to speak, to ask something, but finally he turned and began slowly walking down the slope toward the horses.

"How did the purbas find you?" Shan asked Dremu as they began following the American. "They chose you not just as a guide, but because you know about the eye."

"Find me? I found them," Dremu said in a low voice, leaning close to Shan as if wary of the rocks overhearing. "Others knew the fifty-fourth had it, but I was the one who discovered exactly where. I found the Tibetan worker the soldiers paid to clean their damned toilets and sometimes he loaned me his identity card. I found it on that colonel's desk. That bastard Lin. I made plans, careful plans, but one night some purbas caught me outside the army headquarters and asked me what I was doing. When I told them I was going to steal the stone they laughed, but kept me in a house for two days. That Drakte came and said no, don't steal it, not if you really want to hurt the Chinese. Just tell us how to get inside Lin's office then meet the eye at that hermitage and help get it to Yapchi. Drakte said they would pay me for what Goloks always did best, watching in the mountains and avoiding troops. They didn't want me in Lhasa. Because they had someone else who had to steal it."

As if it had been listening, Yapchi Mountain replied with another of its ominous rumbles.

Chapter Seven

They rode at a brisk trot over the high plain, their horses seeming eager to catch up with the caravan. Perhaps, Shan thought, the animals were unsettled by the plain, experiencing the same sensations he did, a vague presence, an expectation in the air. He could find no words to describe the feeling. It wasn't fear, although Dremu frequently rose in his stirrups to look about as if wary of pursuit. There were moments when Shan even felt an unexpected exhilaration as they loped across the wild, remote plain. The high ridges that bounded it on three sides gave it a remote, secret air, a sense of being a world untouched and apart.

As they closed with the caravan he slowed his horse and dismounted, letting Dremu and Winslow catch up with the others as he walked behind. He studied the column of animals and people stretched out over the windblown plain and realized how, during the more peaceful moments of the past few days, he had come to think of their journey as a pilgrimage. He considered the odd assembly. The young girl who spoke for the deities. Nyma the uncertain, illegal nun. The rongpa who thought a jagged piece of stone would protect them from the Chinese. Dremu the bitter warrior, who searched for a way to restore dignity to his family. Perhaps they were more like fugitives than pilgrims. Tenzin the escapee. The American, fleeing from a life and career of disappointment. Perhaps even the Yapchi villagers themselves, now that Colonel Lin had glimpsed Lhandro and Nyma and confiscated Lhandro's papers.

As the caravan entered the little grove of trees, Nyma and Anya, at the back of the line, paused to study a pattern of stone shapes visible on the slope beyond the trees. They trotted into the shadows as if eager to investigate further. Lhandro waited as the sheep and horses gathered around the small stream that coursed through the grove, then gestured Shan and Winslow down a path that led to the far side of the grove. Shan looked for Lokesh, found him helping the villagers untie the packs from the sheep, then followed the two men through the trees.