“I thought I could hide it,” Chenmo confessed, standing at the corner of the hut.
“You sent me up here to find it,” Shan replied.
“I thought you would just find the prayer flags. I didn’t know what to do with them. A strong wind blew most of the line away. The mountain god could have taken them then if he wanted to, but he left them. It is not for me to destroy them.”
“But you thought I would,” Shan replied. He unconsciously lifted the hair to his nose, then felt a flush of embarrassment and quickly lowered it. “Do the others below know?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t tell them.”
“It’s obvious to Public Security that the foreigners were friends of the abbess, that they worked with her at the ruins. There aren’t many places foreigners could stay without attracting undue attention. Eventually they will realize that the hermitage must have been their operating base.”
“But it wasn’t. Rutger and Cora understood the risk that would bring to us. They had a camp higher up, just came here sometimes to join the prayers and speak with the nuns.”
“Then why didn’t she go to the camp to hide?”
“She didn’t think it was safe for some reason. She was terrified.”
“Because she was there, at the ruins that day.”
Chenmo nodded. “She knew, she saw the killer. I am sure of it. But she wouldn’t say anything about what happened. She just kept saying that she had to leave, that it had all been a huge mistake.”
“What was a mistake?” Shan pressed. “You mean the ones who died at the convent made a mistake?”
Chenmo shrugged.
“How did you find her after the murders?”
“She knew I often wander on the slopes, looking for herbs, cleaning old pilgrim paths. When she found me the day after the killings she was like some wild animal, nearly out of her mind, covered with brambles, dried blood on her hands. She could barely speak.”
“She speaks Tibetan?”
“Not much. She had a little dictionary but she lost it. Rutger spoke it. He usually translated into English for her. She speaks some Chinese, as I do. But when she found me she was too terrified for words. After dark I brought her here. She cried all night. I held her and she cried, until no more tears could come. The next day we spoke and she made me understand she wanted some scissors. After I understood what she intended I got her the right clothes, taught her some of the mantras we say.”
“You can’t leave the hair here,” Shan said. “It has the scent of a foreigner.”
Chenmo eyed Shan uneasily. “It is of her body. It must be kept safe.”
Shan stared at the woman in confusion a moment, then recalled that Chenmo had been raised among nomads, whose lives were ruled as much by superstition as their religion. Many of them believed that harm could be afflicted on someone by inflicting it on something that had been removed from their body like hair or fingernails.
“Wrap it in a scrap of leather,” he suggested, “then bury it under a rock on the high slope. With those two prayer flags.”
“She has to have her prayers. More than ever now.”
“Then we must move them away from here. I will help do it if you take me to the foreigner’s camp.”
Chenmo frowned, then looked back at the red nylon flags and nodded.
The foreigners had been shrewd in their selection of a campsite. Chenmo led him for nearly an hour up the rugged slope, stopping only briefly at a high, open ledge for Shan to build a small cairn to cover the hair and affix the flags to the top stone. When she finally stopped by a high outcropping Shan thought she was only resting. Then he saw how she studied the wall of stone. She located a narrow gap and disappeared into its shadows.
The blue nylon tent had seen long use in mountain winds. The equipment around it was that of seasoned trekkers. The campsite looked untouched, as if the two foreigners had just left for a short climb on the rocks above.
Shan bent at the entrance to the tent, pulled down the zipper that secured the covering fly, and stepped inside. On one side two down sleeping bags lay open on foam pads, one with a blanket on top. A nylon stuff sack contained women’s clothes, another those of a man. A large backpack held climbing harnesses, pitons, and carabiners. On the other side lay five small, sturdy aluminum cases. He turned to Chenmo, who lingered uneasily at the entrance. “There should be two backpacks. Surely she must have come back.”
“No. I kept telling her, kept pointing up here, saying she would be safer, and she refused. She was terrified of coming back.”
Three of the metal cases had been designed to hold cameras and lenses. But the compartments shaped of black foam were empty. One camera, he knew, had been destroyed by the killer. The fourth and fifth cases held small plastic containers for miniature videotapes and computer memory cards. He quickly lifted the containers, one by one, opening each. They were all empty.
“She didn’t come back because she knew someone else was coming here,” Shan declared. “Someone who dumped cameras and the contents of these cases into the second pack.” He saw how Chenmo nervously watched the narrow entrance to the campsite. She was frightened.
He probed the sleeping bags and lifted the blanket. It was of cheap grey fabric. He had seen a similar one at Clear Water Camp. “What else is missing?” he asked.
The novice paced slowly around the site. “A little stove that cooked with canisters of gas. Food. Dried food, that they heated with water.”
“Who else knew of this place?”
“The abbess came with me to visit Rutger and Cora.” The novice gestured toward a circle of flat rocks. “They made a meal there. The abbess asked about their worlds.”
Shan studied the rock walls. There were chalk drawings on the stone, some artful, some very primitive. A Buddha. A dog. A yak. A heart. The foreigners had felt safe here. It had been their sanctuary. Pacing along a wall, he saw now a fish and a lotus and realized he knew the artist. “Jamyang was here.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Not that I ever knew,” Chenmo replied uncertainly.
He lifted a small plastic Buddha from a cleft in the rock. “This was theirs?”
She took the Buddha and studied it with a confused expression. “They give these away at Chegar. But no monks came here. Cora and Rutger were careful to stay hidden from everyone but the nuns and Jamyang.”
Shan surveyed the camp with new worry. “The American didn’t come back to her secret camp but a thief did.”
Chenmo backed against one of the walls, as if suddenly frightened.
“Where is she, Chenmo?” he asked abruptly. “She is in grave danger.”
“A message came,” the novice said. “The abbess would be waiting for us on the old road behind the ruins.”
“You mean her body, after it was stolen from Public Security.”
“Stolen? The abbess was ours.”
“Public Security considers the body evidence in a criminal investigation.”
“Her body is evidence of her saintly life.”
“So the nuns went to retrieve it.”
Chenmo slowly nodded. “But the old uncle had come the night before. He said-”