"They said you had fled," Shan ventured.

Dremu put his finger over his lips. "Damned soldiers took me," he whispered. "I was riding near the oil camp, in the trees and I didn't know they had soldiers hiding." Shan saw heavy bruises around the Golok's eyes. "They beat me and put me on that work crew, took my horse even, to haul their logs." Dremu looked toward the drumming sound, which continued, louder than ever, very close. "They didn't know who they had caught," he said in a defiant tone. "Thought I was just some rongpa, like those others who just take their orders. I ran away. But first I told those rongpa that their eye was back in the valley, that the eye was watching again."

"Why would you say that?" Shan asked, studying the forlorn Golok. Had Dremu taken the eye, as Lhandro suspected?

"Because the valley's heart is beating again." Dremu, too, stared toward the drumming. "I'm going to get that stone for you, Chinese. So you can make it like the old days." He pointed in the direction of the heartbeat, bent and moved forward, like a predator stalking prey, Shan a few paces behind.

Just as Dremu seemed about to pounce around an outcropping onto the drummer, the Golok jerked back and held his shoulder, wincing with pain. The drumming stopped, and they heard the sound of feet running. He looked in despair at his shoulder, slowly lifting his fingers. "Buddha's breath! I thought I was shot." He bent and picked up a round stone from near his feet, a pebble that did not belong with the sharp granite shards that otherwise lay underfoot. "A sling," he said, with a hint of respect in his voice, as he looked about cautiously.

The slope was silent, and seemed empty now. Dremu rubbed his shoulder, seeming reluctant to follow. In the hands of an expert a sling could be as deadly as a rifle. He bent low and inched around the rock.

The patch of ground on the far side of the outcropping showed evidence of several boots; prints of the smooth-soled boots worn by Tibetans, made with woolen uppers. They were nearly all small prints.

"Children," Dremu announced as he squatted by the tracks. "Two or three children," he said in a puzzled tone. "Maybe one adult. They sat, and knelt," he explained, pointing to several areas where the earth was pressed smooth. The site had been chosen well, with two large slabs of rock behind it to amplify the sound in the direction of the valley. Shan bent and lifted several pieces of grass that lay at the edge of the clearing. They had little knots tied in them. On a small boulder in front, facing the valley, someone had worked with a chisel, trying to cut away a piece of rock, trying to make an elongated hole in front of the rock.

"For the eye," Dremu said over his shoulder, and with a rush of excitement Shan realized the Golok was right. The eye was back in the valley, and someone had been trying to fashion a new home for it. Shan found himself touching the hole, feeling its rough contours. He stared at the crudely worked stone until finally he realized the Golok was staring at him. Dremu seemed to be waiting for orders.

"Some of the villagers thought it was you who took the eye," Shan said. "I can tell them otherwise now."

Dremu scowled. "You mean you thought it, too. Or you would have told them already."

Shan said nothing.

"I wouldn't have done that. Not before you got it back to the valley."

"You mean you planned to take it."

The Golok stared at Shan. "I don't usually plan that far ahead," he said, and offered a hollow grin. "It's just that… I think my father and grandfather need me to do something about it. Could you understand that?"

Shan nodded soberly, and the Golok brightened and gestured down the slope. "There were sick people who came to the valley. Some had children. Some of the village children fled."

Shan saw for the first time that Dremu's gau, and the small pouch that had hung beside it, were both missing. "You should get food," he suggested, studying the gaunt man. "And rest." But he didn't know how, didn't know where the other Tibetans were, and who would offer help to the Golok. He could not send Dremu to the mixing ledge, where Lhandro was, who had thrown stones at him. "That monk Gyalo and his yak are in the mountains, on the high ridges. If you can find them they will help you get food. All the others have fled. You should, too, until the soldiers go."

"Not all," Dremu countered.

"You mean the drummer."

"I saw some others on the slope this morning. In the high rocks, moving stealthfully. I think maybe they are trying to damage the oil rig."

"Purbas?" Shan asked with a chill.

"I only saw them from a distance. They moved slow, and without fear, as if they didn't care about the soldiers. Probably they have charms to protect them."

Shan stared at the Golok uncertainly, then, asking him once more to leave for the high ranges, he turned and jogged away. He found a game trail that ran parallel to the valley floor and had trotted northward on it for several minutes, watching for movement on the upper slopes and the shadows of caves, when suddenly two figures appeared on the trail in the distance- not walking so much as strolling, conversing, watching the ground as if hunting for something. Shan faded into the shadows between two rocks. He pushed back as far as he could in the cleft and watched, first with fear, then with confusion as two shadows passed by. One of the figures was singing a Tibetan pilgrim's song.

He scrambled out and leapt forward. "Lokesh!" he called out in alarm.

Thirty feet down the trail his old friend turned and offered his crooked grin. "Good fortune!" Lokesh exclaimed. "You can help us, Xiao Shan." His companion, wearing an amused grin, awkwardly raised a hand in greeting to Shan. Tenzin.

"Help with what?" Shan asked in exasperation, looking about for some place to hide the men.

"I told you," Lokesh said sheepishly. "Looking for medicine herbs. Tenzin wants to learn about herbs too."

"In the mountains, you said in the mountains."

Lokesh waved his hand around the landscape. "The mountains around Yapchi," he said with another grin. "Surely you remember. Jokar Rinpoche said it would help that officer. His heart wind is so distressed he could die."

"Tell me where," Shan said in a pleading voice. "Tell me where and I will get your herbs. Just go back. Now-"

His words choked in his throat. Two green uniformed soldiers stepped around a large tree less than a hundred feet away. From behind the soldiers a figure in a white shirt emerged, followed by half a dozen other Tibetans. Shan recognized the man in white. Director Tuan. Four of the others were oil workers, wearing the green jackets of the venture. But the other two wore the robes of monks.

Tenzin gasped as he saw Tuan, grabbed Lokesh and pointed urgently toward the trees above them, pushing him away from the trail. But another soldier appeared on the slope above, thirty feet away, and began speaking excitedly into a small radio.

A moment later a whistle blew from the direction of the camp. Shan saw more of Tuan's white-shirted guards running up the slope. There was no hope, no chance of escape. The soldiers and howlers had won.

Their captors swarmed around them. Lokesh lowered himself to the ground and began saying his beads. Tenzin seemed frozen, looking from Shan to Lokesh with a grim, apologetic expression.

But it wasn't the soldiers who stepped forward to claim the capture. Instead Tuan pulled a camera from a belt pouch and began taking photographs. Of Tenzin, of Lokesh, of the two monks who trotted forward and stood by Tenzin.