Part Three

Chapter Twelve

There are moments, Lokesh sometimes told him, when the wheel of life spins at double speed, when the predestined lines of so many people converge with events important to each one that life itself seems to explode in a confusion of actions and sensations. Lokesh called such moments karma storms.

Shan was at the center of such a storm now. The howler kept blowing his whistle. Colonel Lin barked furious orders. Workers from both ends of the camp called out in alarm, some shouting that there must be an accident, others that saboteurs were in the camp. Shan bolted around the corner of the office trailer, desperately looking for Winslow. A horn blew, much louder than the howler's whistle, an air horn as loud as that of a locomotive. Workers everywhere stopped and began converging on the compound. The big flatbed truck began coasting away, spilling its cargo of pipes as it moved. The sound of the drum mingled with the noise, beating faster than before. And on the slope above, where the timber crews labored, a huge tree slammed into the earth.

Shan ran, weaving in and out of the trailers, wondering if he dared flee toward Yapchi Village. No, he would be in the open, easily spotted, easily outrun by one of the trucks.

Workers urgently shouted, warning others from the runaway truck, some dodging the rolling pipe, some trying to retrieve the pipe. Shan stumbled to one knee, but workers sped past him, racing after the truck. They seemed to believe the alarm had been sounded because of the truck.

Then, as abruptly as it had started, the horn stopped. The whistle stuttered and slowly quieted. A man called out in an oddly awed tone, in Tibetan, then another in Mandarin, and most of the workers halted and began pointing. On the slope above the camp, at the top of the eastern ridge where the road cut through, two figures stood in a pool of brilliant sunlight, staring down at the camp. A solitary monk and, at his side, a huge yak. The Tibetans whispered excitedly. Shan heard rapid, whispered mantras. Even many Chinese workers stopped and stared, some in confusion no doubt, but some perhaps in reverence, for in Chinese tradition few images were more hallowed than that of the old Taoist monk Lao Tzu walking with his ox.

The voices died away. Everyone seemed to be staring at the unexpected, inexplicable sight on the ridge. Only the distant drumming broke the silence, seeming more than ever like the heartbeat of the valley's deity.

Shan hesitated too long. Suddenly hands grabbed him from behind and pulled him roughly back against the wall in the narrow alley between two trailers.

"Here!" a woman's voice commanded, and shoved something onto his head. She pulled his arm into the sleeve of a green jacket. He stared numbly into the face of the young Tibetan woman, thinking he had seen her before, then Winslow was beside him and with the same angry look the woman thrust another jacket at the American. She tossed them each a hard hat. "Go! You'll ruin everything!" she cried, and pointed urgently toward the wooded slope behind the camp, then sped away, shouting to the furious howlers that she had seen the man running down the road past the runaway truck.

Winslow helped Shan into the jacket and pulled him away at a fast walk. The swarm of workers seemed to part for them as they walked into the open, past the troop trucks. Between them and the shelter of the slope were three army tents. But only two soldiers lingered there, tending a large pot on a cook fire. As Winslow led him forward Shan saw that the American's coat had a word on the back in big English and Chinese letters. Manager. On the helmet he was wearing was stenciled a large numeral one. On Shan's own head was a hard hat identical to those used by the venture workers. They passed the soldiers, who gave them quick nods, then rapidly moved up the slope.

After a quarter hour Winslow finally paused. He took off his helmet and studied it a second, cursed, then laughed. "Who was that masked man?" he said in English.

"I'm sorry?" Shan asked. He was busily scanning the opposite side of the valley. Gyalo and Jampa, for he knew it could only have been them, had vanished.

"A joke. I mean who was that woman who helped us?"

"A lot of Tibetans don't like knobs," Shan said. But he did know who it was. He had finally placed her face while they had trotted along the slope. He had last seen her at the hermitage, the day he had left Gendun performing the death rites for Drakte. The purba runner, Somo.

Perhaps it hadn't just been Somo who had saved them, they realized as they walked around the upper slope toward Yapchi speaking about what had happened. Somo might have released the brakes on the truck, but the air horn had been the signal used for emergencies, or for important announcements by the manager. The horn had confused everyone enough for them to escape. Winslow had been present when Jenkins had used it to summon workers to announce that they would be operating the drilling rig night and day, with double wages for all if they struck oil before May first. "There's a little box with a key lock," Winslow explained as he studied the compound and slowly grinned. "I saw Jenkins open it that day. I thought only Jenkins had a key."

They stopped at an opening in the trees and sat on a rock to let Winslow scan the camp with his binoculars. "Soldiers have the workers lined up," he said. "Probably checking every identity card."

"The soldiers will blame the howlers," Shan speculated, "and the howlers will blame the soldiers and the knobs."

Winslow replied with a dry grin. "Ain't it grand." The American studied the compound. "Maybe especially the knobs. They're pulling out." He handed the glasses to Shan.

He examined the camp in confusion. The knobs from Golmud, from the north, were indeed leaving, and in a hurry, pulling up their tents and throwing them into their trucks, loading equipment under the watchful eye of Director Tuan. Strangely, impossibly, Religious Affairs seemed to be evicting the knobs. As if Tuan was taking over for them, as if Tuan had authority over them. There was something wrong, something confused about who had authority at the camp, just as at Norbu. Perhaps not, he realized a moment later. Perhaps the only confusion was about who had authority over Shan, and Tenzin, and the mysteries that seemed to riddle the valley.

"You will be reported," Shan said in a leaden voice as he lowered the glasses.

"Maybe not. I've been thinking on that. When that Director Tuan saw you, you were alone. And he didn't see me at the gompa with you."

"But he was speaking with Lin. That's why he said it, said I knew about both."

"Both what?"

Shan thought a moment. "Tuan is interested in Tenzin or someone who looks like Tenzin. Lin is looking for the stone and its thief. His best clue is that a group of Yapchi rongpa was found a hundred miles south of here. Tuan saw me with Tenzin. Lin saw me with the Yapchi caravan. He meant both what Tuan is seeking, and what Lin's commandos are seeking. As if," Shan said slowly, "they are seeking different things. Connected but different."

Winslow winced. "Connected through you." He studied Shan, then surveyed the camp again with his glasses. "Even if they wanted to complain about me, what could they say? That an American diplomat was disrupting the oil production? That I am interfering with some campaign they have against Tibetans?"

It was Shan's turn to wince.

"Christ," Winslow sighed. "In the end it's always about that, isn't it," he said, as if just grasping the meaning of his own words. "It never stops, does it? Like some huge Chinese machine that was turned on so many decades ago, and they don't know how to turn it off. It just keeps consuming Tibet and Tibetans."