“The fool Tsipon ordered the fire crew away,” the man groused, and started yelling for buckets of water.
Shan, knowing his hidden assailant would be powerless to act with so many witnesses, could not resist a look inside the notebook. He scanned the early pages before putting the old truck into gear. The American woman’s name was printed in neat letters on the inside cover, which otherwise was covered with a list of mountains flanked by small sketches of monks and prayer wheels. Most pages contained diary-style entries and random technical notes about climbing, some outlined in boxes, some written sideways or even upside down. They were flanked by more images in pencil, mostly of Tibetan scenes or objects though some, like a moose and a cow wearing a large bell, were from other continents. But it was the diary entries that interested Shan. They began with a date three years before, written in Katmandu, then quickly shifted to entries from the southern base camp on the Nepal side of Everest. There were sketches of climbing routes, maps showing advance camps, lines of poetry, transcription of haiku, even names of sherpas with comments on their skills, a single line in large black letters that said, Wherever there are humans you’ll find flies and Buddhas.
As he pulled out of the parking lot his mind was racing faster than the fire truck rushing toward the warehouse. One of the first names mentioned on Megan Ross’s list of sherpas was that of Tenzin Nuru.
Shan left the old truck in a clearing half a mile below Tumkot and was picked up by Yates in his red utility vehicle a few minutes before he reached the village. Shan motioned the American to park in the shadow between two sheds at the edge of the village.
“Does this mean anything to you?” he asked as he took a peche sheet removed from his workshop and rolled it, extending it to the American. “A prayer rolled like this?”
Yates took the little cylinder of parchment, unrolled it, repeated the process himself. “Maybe just a way to store a prayer? Or a way to put it in a mani wall, or one of the little statues,” he added. He seemed utterly fascinated by the rolled prayer. Shan let him hold on to it as they moved along the dirt street and down the worn stone stairs that led to the main square.
No one was home at Kypo’s house. Ama Apte’s house was likewise empty. Shan lifted the bench outside the fortuneteller’s entry and set it inside, in the shadows just past the pool of light cast through the open door. Yates, restless as ever, wandered around the dimly lit stalls of the lower floor, asking Shan the Tibetan names of some of the implements, the meaning of some of the fortuneteller’s signs drawn on the wall inside the door. He stumbled over something lying in the shadows and the goat leaped up with a surprised bleat. Frightened at first, it quieted as the American stroked its back. Shan saw the animal’s swollen udder, found the tin bucket the astrologer kept by the door and began milking as Yates sang a song to the goat about a racehorse named Stewball.
There they sat, like two lonely shepherds, when Ama Apte walked in with Kypo and her granddaughter. Though they bore the grime of heavy trekking and looked exhausted, Ama Apte’s son advanced on them as if to eject them from the house, resentment in his eyes.
“We are not your enemies, Kypo” Shan stated, putting a restraining hand on Yates as the American began to rise.
“You are not Tibetans.” Kypo’s voice grew heated as he spoke. “It’s always the same. You outsiders dabble in our affairs like it is some game, then leave us to take the punishment.”
“Tibet should be for Tibetans,” Shan declared. “If my leaving improved the chances of Tibetans achieving their own country again I would pack my bag tomorrow.”
The words hung in the air. Kypo stepped in front of his daughter as if to protect her, nervously watching his mother.
“Easy for you to say,” Ama Apte replied. “Just words.”
Shan returned the woman’s steady gaze then looked down at the packed earth floor between his feet, fighting an unexpected feeling of melancholy. “In the yeti factory,” he stated, each word like a spasm of pain, “my son is a prisoner. If I cannot find the truth of the killings by the day after tomorrow they will use his brain for a medical experiment.”
Not even the goat moved.
“Jesus, Shan,” Yates gasped. “You never. . ” His words drifted away.
Kypo uttered a curse under his breath. His daughter clutched his leg, pressing her head into his hip.
“It is time for the truth,” Shan said, gazing pointedly at Ama Apte. “It is time for all the truth. No fortunetelling. No dice. No hiding in the future or behind the fates. You were searching Megan Ross’s tent at the base camp. You didn’t find what you wanted.”
“You don’t know that,” the woman replied in a brittle voice.
Shan reached inside his shirt, extracted the notebook and dropped it on an empty stool. “This is what you wanted.”
Ama Apte sighed, her eyes wide as she stared at Megan Ross’s journal. “We shall have tea.”
As the astrologer stepped to the doorway to work her churns, Shan scanned the last few entries in the notebook. Anticipation was in the words, even excitement, starting with a visit to a particular curve in the mountain road.
Nathan says it is all too dangerous but he showed me how to rig the site so no one would have to be there. He must think I am some kind of engineer. Began to lay out the new route up the North Col. Nathan wants a private route up, so we won’t keep running into the other expeditions. When Tenzin arrives we will start scouting.
Next came a poem about mountains in the moonlight, like silver steps to heaven, then sketches of birds and a hairy seated figure that might have been a meditating yeti. The next day brought a reference to the road, and the reason Ama Apte had been looking for the book.
Ama Apte and I walked the slope today. Bless her, she says I should not worry, that she will do this for me and the mountain, and the monks, that there will be enough moonlight for her to set it up the night before. Then, after a sketch of a ritual dagger, Tenzin arrived! followed by a matter-of-fact entry about the new route above the base camp and calculations of the number of oxygen bottles needed for the first expedition, ending with Nathan and I are insisting that every bottle be carried back down and that any customer who leaves litter on the top slopes will never climb with us again!
The last entry was short. Went up to inspect the first advance camp. I found Tenzin there alone, separated from the others by the heavy blow on the slope above. He agrees with the whole plan, will organize the sherpas to hold up a banner supporting the Compact at the minister’s picnic at Rongphu. Had to leave him before dawn to catch an unexpected ride to town. Have to ask Tsipon why we are leaving so much money in the Hong Kong accounts. I told Ama Apte we will rewrite the future of Chomolungma! They were the last words.
When he looked up, Ama Apte was staring at him, holding the hot water kettle. “She told Tenzin,” he explained. “She told him everything. It got him killed.”
Ama Apte’s eyes filled with moisture. “But he wasn’t anywhere close. He wasn’t going to do anything but hold up a banner.”
It was Yates who explained. “There was another person who knew, an invisible one who couldn’t leave Tenzin alive to say he had used Megan’s plan as a cover for murder.”
The fortuneteller said no more until she had handed her visitors mugs of tea. “Let us go to the yeti factory,” she announced. “Let us find a way to rescue your son.”
Shan replied with a small, sad smile. “Thank you but no. That is something only I can do.”
“They are the new gods, you know,” she said into her cup of tea. “What they write down a thousand miles away becomes our truth, like the old lamas who once wrote our sutras. They hung a new slogan on the municipal building. The Party Is Our Buddha.”