"We just wanted to thank you," the man said. His voice was hoarse, nearly a whisper, as though it had not been used in a long time. "I am called Lepka."

Shan lowered himself to the floor in front of the man, balancing the bowl between his legs. "I have done nothing. I lost the eye."

"But you came anyway," the man said, in a lama's voice. "Already things happen. You got the eye closer than it has been for a hundred years."

Things happen. Shan could not bring himself to question the aged Tibetan. What things? The destruction of Chemi's village? The gathering of knobs and army troops in the valley, probably for the first time since the terrible day when the eye was stolen? The distant rumbling of the oil derrick, scraping and grinding deep in the earth? The reckless talk of opposing the Chinese in the valley?

He offered a sad smile and studied Lepka. He had learned to think of such aged Tibetans as one of the treasures that the hidden parts of Tibet offered up, men and women who seemed to defy time, or at least to resist aging, who might live a century or more, and whose most vibrant memories were not of the times since Beijing had arrived, but before. The man's skin was like ancient parchment. He was very old, perhaps old enough to have been alive when the eye was taken from Yapchi. His gnarled fingers, Shan saw, were formed into a mudra, his thumbs pressed together, the knuckles of the first joints above the hands joined, the middle fingers extended and pressed together. With a blush of shame, Shan recognized the gesture. It was an offering mudra, the offering of water for the feet, used for initiating monks or receiving sanctified visitors.

"I went down to that place," Lepka declared. "I leaned on my staff and went down to that Chinese machine." He smacked his lips again and the woman handed him a bowl of water from the side of the platform, which he sipped from before speaking again. "I threw a stone at it." A thin line of water dribbled from his mouth as he spoke. "Sometimes demons make people have visions, make them see evil things that are not really there. But the stone hit metal, and bounced back. The workers laughed and said, 'look at the crazy old man.'" Lepka looked at Shan and grinned. He was missing most of his teeth. "But I can throw rocks good. When I was young I kept wolves away from the herds, with rocks and my sling. I threw another rock, and another, at different places. They laughed some more. But you know what?" he asked, then coughed and made a long wheezing sound before continuing. "I found a place that was a bell," he said with a meaningful gaze. "It didn't look like a bell, because it had been hidden in a different shape. But it sounded like a bell," he declared with a grin. "It was the essence of a bell, hiding there."

Bells, in traditional Tibet, were sometimes used to frighten demons away.

"And they didn't even know," Lepka said, and made the wheezing sound again. Shan realized it was a laugh.

Shan answered with a solemn nod and drank some tea. "Your home," he said, searching for something to say, "is so peaceful. Like a temple."

The woman smiled, and the old man surveyed the chamber slowly, as though seeing it for the first time. "The grandfather of my grandfather built this house," he said. "In the first year of the Eighth." He was speaking of the eighteenth century.

"It has heard many prayers," the woman added quietly. "Our son likes to bring the village here to meet with him on important decisions because he says no one ever speaks rudely in this house, for all the prayers that live in the wood."

Shan gazed back over the sleeping platform. He saw that there was another pallet, rolled, against the back wall, and suddenly he realized whose house he was in. "It's a long journey, to Lamtso."

The old man smiled. "When he was three years old, I took my boy for the first time. He sat on my shoulders as we walked and we would sing. For hours we would sing. And there was a dog, a huge mastiff that let him ride on its back. Sometimes he would lie down and fall asleep on that dog's broad back and the dog would just keep walking. I said it was too dangerous…" The hoarseness was gone from the man's voice, as though the memories had revived something inside.

"But you made all the other dogs work," a voice said softly, behind Shan. "You put packs on all the other dogs when we left the lake. All but that one, so I could ride it home."

"Son!" the woman cried and leapt up to embrace Lhandro.

The village headman looked up from his mother's arms and smiled wearily.

"Lha gyal lo, Lha gyal lo," Lepka intoned quietly, his eyes filling with moisture. "The salt has found its way again."

Lhandro stepped to his father and knelt, opening his hand to reveal a mound of brilliant white crystals. He raised his father's hand and solemnly poured the salt onto the dry, wrinkled palm and closed the gnarled fingers around it. The wheezing laugh erupted again from Lepka's throat, and he pressed the handful of salt against his heart.

As Shan stepped to the door sheep began streaming past the outer gate, salt packs still on their backs, coming from north of the valley. Excited greetings echoed down the central path of the village, but also warnings. He stepped outside in confusion. On the slope above the village, near the trees, several of those from camp stood waiting, some waving, some pointing toward the arriving caravan. Then he saw a figure run from the group, in the opposite direction, as if to hide. He turned and saw that not all the Tibetans had been pointing toward the caravan.

Nyma appeared in the midst of the sheep, worry clouding her face. "They searched all our bags, and made us leave five sheep for them," she blurted out, without a greeting. She looked at the rear of the caravan. Two army trucks were winding their way up their valley, just a few hundred yards behind the last of the sheep.

Lhandro appeared in the doorway behind Shan, raised a hand to warn his parents to stay inside, then swept past Shan, pushing him into the shadows. As Shan took a position just inside the door, the headman stepped out into the central path to wait for the trucks. A knot tightened in Shan's belly as he watched the trucks stop and a dozen soldiers jump out. One of them opened the side door of the first truck, emblazoned with a snow leopard, and a man in an officer's tunic stepped down.

"Good morning, Colonel Lin," a voice called out with false warmth from behind Lhandro. Through the open door Shan watched Winslow walk jauntily to Lhandro's side. The American had washed and shaved, and put on a clean shirt. "Another glorious day for youth league maneuvers."

One side of Lin's mouth curled up as he recognized the American. He turned and spoke to someone behind him, out of Shan's sight. A moment later a soldier marched past Winslow and Lhandro, holding a clipboard as he surveyed the village with restless, hawk-like eyes.

"The American embassy has no authority to meddle in the internal affairs of China," Lin growled as he took a step toward Winslow. He spoke loudly, as if to address a larger audience.

"Of course not," the American agreed in a business-like tone. "The Qinghai Petroleum Venture has an American partner. One of its American workers is missing. Matter of international relations," he added pointedly, in a voice as loud as Lin's.

"Not missing," Lin said readily, as if he had made it his business to know what the American had been doing in the mountains. "Dead. Most unfortunate."