“She says we have to destroy it in two or three days but until then we-”
Shan did not hear the rest of the sentence, for Sansan had nodded toward the path that led to the road. He darted into the shadows and out onto the open slope. Meng was already at her car. She paused, seeing him, and for a long moment they silently gazed at each other. Then she climbed inside and drove away.
EPILOGUE
The long trail of dust gleamed silver in the moonlight, a cloud that seemed to be pushing them ever on, deeper into the new land. Shan and Lokesh stood on the ridge to watch as the three heavy vehicles that had been following them climbed the steep dirt track below. Like scouts in the wilderness Jigten and Rapeche the headman had stood in the back of Shan’s truck, guiding them for hours through the vast grassland, their night passage lit only by dim parking lights and the hand lanterns used when rocks had to be cleared from their path.
They turned at the sound of a low whistle from Jigten and climbed back into their own truck. Jigten and the old shepherd insisted now on walking in front of the weary column, leading the vehicles along the narrow track between tall, narrow stone formations that loomed like ghostly sentinels in the night. Half an hour later they stopped as Jigten and the old man conferred excitedly. Rapeche dropped to one knee and plucked some of the grass at his feet and chewed on it, then tasted the soil. As the headman turned his face was full of joy. He seemed to have discovered a long-lost friend.
When the clan patriarch had proclaimed that Shan had performed a miracle, Shan had quickly corrected the old man, insisting that the magic had all been in the young Chinese woman, explaining how Sansan had used the Public Security computer to confuse the government. Rapeche had listened patiently, then proclaimed again that Shan had performed a miracle. Not even Shan and Yuan had fully grasped Sansan’s passion when she first tried to explain the opportunities presented by having Liang’s computer but after several hours at their dining table, running through programs on the little machine, learning how the populations of the dropka camps were managed and assigned, they had begun to share her excitement. When Jigten had reported an unexpected, joyful reunion between Rapeche and his granddaughter, they had invited the headman to Yuan’s house and spent most of the night consulting maps and devising the plan. At dawn they had gone to see Lung and the Jade Crows.
Now, four days later, Shan was still in awe at the boldness of their plan. The manager at Clear Water Camp had expected his residents to be relocated, and although it had been sooner than he had anticipated Shan had seen the relief on his face as the trucks were being loaded with his unruly charges. Sansan had simply altered relocation schedules, vehicle records, and destinations. In fact, at her father’s urging, the destination of the clan was changed repeatedly in the system, then the last destination was linked back to the first so that the record would seem to disappear into a loop of reassignments. The administration of relocation and internment programs was notoriously inefficient. No one had time to reconcile the records and if they tried they would find neither the real destination of the missing shepherds nor the vehicles that had transported them.
Shan and Lokesh climbed out to join Jigten and the old headman in a clearing on what appeared to be one more rise in the endless hills. Before them the landscape was unknown, shrouded in fog. But as the trucks pulled up side by side, Rapeche threw up his arms and shouted what sounded like a mantra.
“Truly the gods shine on us this night!” Lokesh exclaimed. Shan turned to his friend in confusion then followed his gaze toward an increasingly bright patch of light ahead of them. The fog was shifting, quickly blowing away, leaving the landscape washed in moonlight.
Jigten dropped to his knees. They were not on just another hilltop, they were on the crest of a ridge that rose like a wall to protect a vast basin of grassland below. Small lakes dotted the land, patches of silver in a rolling sea.
“They say there is no paved road for nearly four hundred miles in that direction.” Professor Yuan spoke over Shan’s shoulder. “Not even the army has reliable maps. It’s a wilderness of grass.”
Lung Tso jumped out of the cab of the first truck and began shouting orders to the drivers, who backed their trucks to the edge of the ridge. From the last truck came eager bleats. The animals too seemed to sense where they were. The sheep had been the Jade Crows’ payment for joining their scheme. Sansan had provided the gang with the schedules of trucks traveling the central highway with cargos of livestock for the government abattoirs in the north. The smugglers had done the rest. By the end of the night the Jade Crows would be gone on the eastern highway, to some city in a distant province where they could buy false registrations for their trucks and themselves and start anew. All the bounty money left after outfitting the dropka for the trip Shan had given to Lung. When the police finally went to the Jade Crow compound they would find it abandoned, with a little Buddha sitting on the gatepost.
The excited cries of the sheep began to stir the passengers who had been sleeping in the bays of the other trucks. The rear flaps were flung open and bright faces appeared. Cries of joy and prayers of thanks rippled through the dropka as they began unloading packs of supplies. One of the first to jump down was Chenmo, her face beaming. She gave Shan a shy embrace. “Uncle Lokesh says I will be the clan’s nun now. I told him I could never get a robe and he said it is what is in your heart that makes you a nun, not what you wear.” She touched the abbess’s gau, now hanging from her neck, and turned to help a young boy out of the truck.
As Shan helped empty the first truck, the professor and Sansan appeared, hoisting packs on their backs.
“I’m sorry,” Shan said, “but there is no time for you to help them find a camp. We have to be back in the valley by daybreak.”
Yuan’s smile was as wide as the landscape. “In the spring come and find us,” he said. “There is a festival for the lambing.”
Shan stared at his friend in disbelief. “Think this through, Yuan. You have no idea of the hardship.”
“Someone needs to record all their stories. The world needs to know. The shepherds who have been forced to towns need to know. There used to be an honored profession among the nomads, that of the traveling letter writer, who would write messages to share among the clans. Maybe that will be my new job.”
“Do you have any idea how harsh the winter will be?”
“Jigten’s mother has promised to show us how to make thick felt blankets. She has been steadily recovering since learning she was returning home. She says once she is back in her homelands she can make proper medicines for Sansan and her.”
Sansan grabbed Shan’s hand, squeezing it tightly, then darted away to help another child out of the truck.
“Please,” Shan said to Yuan. “You are too old.”
The professor gazed after his daughter. “Meng came by our house. She told us the arrest order could not be avoided for much longer. If they took Sansan it would be at least five years, more likely ten. At my age I would never see her again. This way we are together, living a new adventure, making a difference for these people. Meng made it possible, my friend,” Yuan added.
Shan looked away, into the night sky, fighting another wave of emotion. He had not seen Meng again. When he had gone to the police post the constables had reported she had abruptly taken a new assignment on the Mongolian border. She had left a report with them, that stated that she and Shan had found that Major Liang and Norbu were engaged in smuggling. Once Norbu’s disappearance was discovered it would be enough to protect Shan from Liang if the major tried to find him.