“Hubei!” Bing shouted. When his lieutenant did not appear Bing cursed, took a step forward, then halted again as a column of smoke began to rise from the heap of rocks. He called for Hubei again, then turned to his companions.
“Wait here,” the former Public Security officer ordered before sprinting back toward Little Moscow. “Not a step farther until I bring help.”
Shan studied the rock slabs. They stood at the base of a steep black ridge that jutted to the west. He glanced at Hostene and Thomas and began to run.
He paused a hundred feet from the fire, crouching to study the scene. If what he had viewed earlier was the town square of the miners’ world, this was its temple. The huge slabs had sheared off a stubby rock tower and fallen at angles against its base, creating the effect of a large irregular spire pointing toward heaven. Those who used it had even printed their particular scriptures onto the entrance rocks with black paint. REJOICE IN WORK, one mocked, a long-ago Party slogan. WAN SUI! proclaimed another rock face- Ten thousand years! — the old salute to the emperor’s health. Then, beside it, FEAR EVERYTHING. Across the main entrance was a rope hung with empty beer cans and one more sign. TOWN HALL, it said.
Hostene caught up with Shan. “The boy’s gone,” the Navajo said.
Thomas was nowhere to be seen.
“He ran as soon as Bing was out of sight,” Hostene explained. “He’d had a bad beating. I don’t blame him.”
Together, they approached the fire. Shan gestured to a boulder. “Wait here.”
“You heard them. A hand was found.”
“I also heard them say claim stakes had been burned.”
The fire near the entrance appeared to have been fueled by blankets that were doused in kerosene. Half a dozen painted sticks, barely charred, lay on top. “But this fire was lit only moments ago.”
Hostene’s reply was to push Shan aside. He lowered his pack to the ground and walked past the fire into the shadowy entrance. Shan glanced back up the slope. Then, seeing nothing, he followed.
Inside was a long table of hewn logs bearing several candles set in empty beer bottles, two of which were lit. Heavy sheets of canvas hung from beams braced in the rock slabs, serving as room partitions. A noise rose from the farthest one, the sound of a clay pot smashing. Hostene pushed past Shan, thrusting aside the canvas. A single candle inside flickered in the breeze that came through a gap in the rear wall. It was a storeroom, lined with baskets, sacks of rice, and small barrels, on top of which lay shards where someone had smashed a ceramic butter lamp against the wall. To one side were two nylon sleeping bags, an assortment of pots and pans, and-something Shan had not seen in years-a small coffee pot. In the center of the floor were two packs, one blue, the other red, each with a rising sun on its flap.
“It’s ours! Our equipment! Our packs!” Hostene exclaimed, then sobered as he saw a piece of dirty cloth on top of the red pack, folded over a lumpy object. He stared at it, suddenly frightened, and did not react when Shan pushed past and lifted a small piece of paper left on the cloth, covered with Chinese ideograms.
“What is it?” Hostene asked in a hoarse voice.
“A death charm,” Shan explained. “Inscribed for the funeral of a family member.” He placed the paper in his pocket, then reached for the cloth bundle and, with a shudder, opened it.
Hostene let out a surprised groan. They saw a woman’s hand with long graceful fingers lifted in what Shan recognized as the wish-giving ritual sign, a mudra. But it was a two-dimensional representation, painted on a piece of plaster, a fragment of a long-faded fresco. In the center of the palm was a white eye. This time Tara, the goddess, had been dismembered.
In the goddess’s hand, inserted near the tip of the fingers, was a small stick with eyes carved on its end.
As Hostene reached out and picked up the fragment, Shan grabbed the straps of both packs in one hand and pulled him back into the main chamber. Hostene paused as they passed the table, set down the plaster, and gestured for Shan to place the packs on the table. For the first time Shan noticed their disproportionate weight. The red was very light, the blue very heavy.
“I told you to stay put,” an angry voice snapped as Shan reached into the blue pack. Bing was not alone anymore. Hubei and half a dozen miners armed with shovels and picks stood behind him.
“What have you stolen this time, old man?” Bing demanded of Hostene.
“It’s mine!” the Navajo muttered. “You can’t-”
Bing grabbed the red pack, upending it onto the table.
Hostene’s protest choked in his throat. The miners, even Bing, retreated a step, revulsion in their faces. The pack contained the hands of as many as six skeletons.
Before Bing could react, Shan shoved Hostene toward the entrance and swung the blue pack, knocking Bing off balance.
“Don’t look back!” Shan shouted to Hostene. “Run!” He reached into the blue pack, flung a handful of its contents at the miners, and ran, too. The miners halted as they saw what Shan had thrown at them. Gold. Someone had dropped dozens of small nuggets into the blue pack.
Only Bing and Hubei made an effort to chase them. Then Shan spun about and with a heave scattered the remaining contents of the open pack across the slope. The nuggets rattled onto the rocky terrain in a wide arc, bouncing, rolling, scattering across the mountainside.
“Nooooo!” Bing moaned and flung himself down the slope, trying to catch the nuggets as they bounced. Then he tripped and went rolling too.
Once, according to legend, there had been monks who ran as a meditation exercise. As he ran, Shan only meditated on death.
A quarter hour later, when Hostene raised his palms and bent, gasping, Shan gestured him into the shadow of a large boulder.
“Someone is still convinced you are the killer,” Shan said.
“Someone? They are all convinced now. I had the hands. I was stealing their gold. We just gave them all the proof they needed.” Hostene straightened and looked back in the direction they had come. “The killer could have been there.”
“Not the killer necessarily,” Shan replied. “But a brother.” He extracted the death charm from his pocket and scrutinized it. “This is a charm to protect the spirit of a dead man. It refers to him as ‘brother’. No name is given, though it says the victim was nineteen years old. And it asks that his ghost be allowed to punish his killer.” Shan followed Hostene’s worried gaze. They began walking up the slope.
“Had you seen it before?” Shan asked. “The hand with the eye?”
Hostene thought a moment. “There was a goddess with an eye on her hand. Beside a blue bull.”
Shan said, “The blue bull painting is where the young miner died.”
“Abigail kept returning to it,” Hostene recalled suddenly.
“Why?”
“She never said. Sometimes she took Professor Ma with her. They would have made videotapes.” He reflected. “But those tapes were not with the others. She must have taken them with her.”
“Can you find the blue bull painting?”
Hostene turned to the south, rubbing his temple as he considered the landscape, then pointed to distant grove of trees. “We can’t risk it. Too close to Little Moscow.”
As he spoke they heard a booming sound on the slope below, and a red rocket shell burst in the sky. Bing was an efficient manager of his little community.
“What does that mean?” Hostene asked.
“Bing’s civil alert system, I would guess. I think the best answer for Bing and Chodron is still for you to be the killer. They were shocked that you were an American, but that will soon wear off. They’ll realize that’s not really a problem so long as you and your niece never leave the mountain.”
“Then we must leave. I should hide.”
“We have to inspect that painting.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Hostene protested.
Abigail kept returning to the blue bull image. I think the killer keeps returning to it too.”