Gendun cocked his head first to one side then the other. “If the gods are trying to take us to a new place,” he said in a quizzical, excited tone, “why would they use our old words?”
Shan watched in mute confusion as the lama reached inside his sleeve and produced the stub of a pencil. On one of the smooth planks leaning against the wall he drew something, then set it in front of the stranger. Surprisingly, it was a fish. Not any fish, but the traditional image of the leaping golden fish, representing spiritual liberation, one of the Eight Auspicious Signs sacred to the Tibetans.
The stranger rubbed his head a moment, gazing uncertainly at his companions, then accepted the pencil offered by Gendun and ran his fingertip over the image in the same way Lokesh did with unfamiliar images. The silence was that of a teaching, when novices waited for the slow word of an old lama. At last he lifted the pencil and drew an object opposite the fish on the plank, something that might have been a stalk of corn.
Gendun ran his own fingertips over the new image, then drew another of the sacred symbols. A lotus flower, sign of purity. The stranger made another. A bundle of arrows.
A sigh of wonder escaped Lokesh’s lips. Gendun sketched still another of the eight sacred signs. A treasure vase, repository of the jewels of enlightenment. The stranger sketched. A rainbow. Gendun drew again. A wheel of dharma. With a somber gaze the stranger once more bent over the plank. When he had finished Shan saw Lokesh’s eyes grow round. The man had drawn the zigzag snake, the thunderbolt serpent that they had seen drawn in blood. “The gods are making a proposal,” the old Tibetan exclaimed, then his face sagged. “But I don’t know what it is.”
As his friends bent over the sketch, Shan stepped to a corner, where sunlight leaked through cracks in the plank wall. He pulled from his belt the pouch given him by the fleeing miner, kneeled, and extracted the brown plastic jars, realizing he had not opened the one he had assumed to be empty. He had been wrong. It was filled with small colorful feathers. He unscrewed the container with the medicine. It contained two types of pills, neither of them the small white tablets strangers often brought to Tibet for altitude sickness. He discovered a slip of paper tucked so tightly around the inside of the jar that he had not noticed it on his first examination. With a finger he pried at it, discovering there were in fact two slips, both drug prescriptions. One was for methotrexate, the other for leucov-orin calcium. Along the top of each slip ran a legend in ornate silver letters. Monument Pharmacy, Shiprock, New Mexico.
For several minutes Shan continued to watch the silent, energetic exchange between his two Tibetan friends and the stranger, his mind racing. The riddles of Sleeping Dragon Mountain never generated answers, only more riddles. Finally he poured another cup of black tea and squatted by the trio.
Shan said in English as he extended the cup to the man, “I hear there are more Tibetan scholars in America than in China.”
At the sound of the English words the stranger’s jaw dropped. His reply came out in a dry and cracked voice, but it was understandable. “I have never met a Tibetan who spoke English.”
“I am Chinese,” Shan said, returning the man’s grin.
“I am called Hostene, Hostene Natay.” The man looked about, studying each of them in turn. “I guess you saved my life.”
“Lha gyal lo,” Lokesh whispered, the words echoed by Dolma a moment later. Gendun, his hand pressed to his side as if he was in pain, offered a serene smile, then gazed at the plank with the drawings.
They spoke rapidly for a quarter hour, Shan pausing to translate for his friends until Hostene discovered both Gendun and Lokesh spoke Chinese. In slow, clumsy Mandarin, with many apologies for not having kept it polished since learning it in the US Army many years earlier, he explained that he was a retired judge from New Mexico in the southwestern United States. Lokesh gave Shan no chance to ask Hostene about the murders, instead peppering him with questions about the stick figure, the lightning bolts, and the dialogue in symbols he had carried on with Gendun.
“It is why we are here,” Hostene explained. “To unlock the links between the Tibetans and my people.”
“Your people?” Shan asked.
“The Dine. The Navajo.”
Shan had a vague recollection of the term. “You mean Native Americans?”
“There are many names for the tribes that first inhabited North America. First Nations. Original Peoples.” Hostene pressed his hand to his temple. “The people to whom the gods entrusted the continent.” His wry tone did little to conceal his obvious pain. “My tribe is the Navajo.”
He closed his eyes a moment. “I don’t remember how I got here. I was sleeping. Someone walked through the trees and stepped on a branch. I rolled over and something hit me on the head.”
Shan asked, dreading the answer, “Who else was with you?”
“A retired professor from Beijing, Professor Ma Hopeng, and a young Tibetan guide. We met in Chamdo.” Hostene paused, looking toward the door with anxious eyes. “Where are they?” he asked urgently. “I must see them.”
Shan and Lokesh exchanged a glance.
Hostene struggled to rise, then slumped forward. He seemed to be losing consciousness again. “The boy is covered in blood!” he groaned. “Warn her, up on the mountain!” His eyelids fluttered and shut, and he dropped back onto the pallet.
“The mountain deity,” Lokesh concluded. “He wants to warn the mountain deity.”
As they rolled him onto his back, Hostene came to life again, resisting their efforts, trying to get to his feet. He was perhaps fifteen years older than Shan but, at least for the moment, seemed to have the strength of a man in his prime.
“They are beyond our help,” Shan told him. “There are words you might wish to say for them. Gendun has been offering prayers for them.”
Hostene looked at Shan, seeking comprehension. Shan caught him as he sagged and lowered him back to the pallet.
“Something happened that night,” Shan said. “You were found covered with blood, sitting against a rock. You are the only survivor.”
Hostene lowered his head into his hands. No one spoke. Dolma lit another stick of incense.
“I was in my sleeping bag,” the Navajo finally whispered. “The sun had not yet risen. I turned and. . that’s all I can recall. Who?” he asked. “Why?”
“We don’t know,” Shan admitted.
“The police?”
“No government reaches here.”
Time passed. “She said she was going to close the circle between two peoples,” Hostene finally said in a grief-stricken voice. “She was so excited about her discoveries. So full of life. I used to say she was like one of the wild mustangs we sometimes glimpsed in the arroyos.”
Shan could not make sense of the Navajo’s words.
When Hostene looked up, tears were streaming down his cheeks. “What will I tell my sister when I see her in the night?”
“Your sister?”
“Abigail was my niece. Her friends begged her not to try this, not to come so far. I told her that if she insisted I would accompany her, to watch over her. And now I’ve let her be killed.”
“But only two bodies were found,” Shan said in confusion. “Neither was that of a woman.”
Hostene grabbed Shan’s wrist. “Abigail! Where is she then?” He had realized that his niece might be alive, alone on the mountain where a murderer was at large.
The door opened. Shan crossed the floor an instant too late. The guard took one look at Hostene, gasped, and with a swift, panicked motion tapped the side of the Navajo’s head with his club. Hostene collapsed to the floor.
* * *
“Gasoline.” it was Chodron’s only greeting when he finally opened his back door to Shan an hour after dawn the next day. The headman, wearing a sleeping robe, handed Shan an empty gas can and pointed to a small lean-to shed built against the house. Inside the shed was a barrel with a hand pump screwed into the top.