"No," Shan said. "It was where he was meant to be," he added, and told her of Winslow's note. This is where I belong, this time, the American up. had said. "He would have come," Shan ventured, "to see you at that sacred lake."
Larkin nodded, gave a forlorn smile, then stared back at the lake. "Nothing happened the way I expected," she said toward the water. "Even this," she said, nodding toward the water. "We never expected so much water."
"Once, when I was young, I had a teacher," a frail voice said.
They turned to see Lepka standing close, gazing at them with sad, moist eyes. "He said there were places on earth where souls are magnified, ripening places he called them, because souls ripen faster there. He said when many people gather in such places it feeds the power of the ripening place, so that great events can happen, and the lives of many people get settled. He said this was such a place, and it was why the lamas never called it Yapchi Mountain, why they had their own name for it, an old name that has been lost. No one has used it for many years."
Lepka looked back toward the snowcapped peak, then squatted by them, lowering his voice. "But my father knew it. It was a long name in an old lama's dialect that meant the Place Where the Spine of the Earth Protrudes. My father just called it Bone Mountain," he whispered. "Sometimes when old lamas finished ripening," he added, "that's where they would go to sleep."
Shan returned Lepka's sad smile, and invited him to sit beside them, watching the valley as it changed before their eyes. "I think that Winslow," Lepka said to the American woman, "he and Jokar Rinpoche are in some bayal, laughing together right now." Larkin put her hand in the old man's, and squeezed it tight.
"What will you do?" Shan asked the American woman.
Larkin looked out over the water. "I was going to try to get back to him, to Cowboy. I guess I'll just go home. Zhu doesn't really want me dead, just out of Tibet." She turned and gazed back at the top of the mountain for a long while, squeezing Lepka's hand the whole time.
"I never would have believed it if I hadn't been here," a deep voice said over their shoulders after several minutes. Jenkins had risen and was standing behind them, staring at the lost derrick. "It's finished. Lost nearly all the heavy equipment when the levee broke. Lucky to get the trailers out in time." It seemed he had decided he owed Shan a report. "I had a furious call from the States, they wanted to know what happened." He gazed at Shan as if about to ask him what had happened, then shrugged. "I said it was just unstable geology."
"No," another voice interjected. Somo had appeared, her feet and pant legs streaked with mud, but her face lit with a serene expression. "I think it is the opposite of that."
Strangely, they all seemed to understand. Jenkins gave a sound like a snort and offered a melancholy smile to the purba. She was suggesting it was the way the geology was supposed to be, the way the mountain could be expected to act once it understood what the humans were trying to do to it.
"It's a loss, the entire damned project," Jenkins said. "All that mud, all that water. Hell, we hadn't even hit the oil yet. Economics will never support a project here now," he said with an inquiring glance at Larkin. "Jesus," he added, staring over his ruined work. "Jesus." He looked back at Shan. "The Tibetans from that village say that deity spoke. They say they are sorry it was so inconvenient for us, but he just spoke." Jenkins shook his head. "It's not my job to speak with deities," he added wearily. "I keep hearing that drum in my head. I'm tired of taking things out of the earth. I'm going home. But first I have to write a report." He shook his head and sighed. "I'll call it an act of god."
"There was someone looking for you, Shan," Larkin suddenly remembered. "I think all those Tibetans who were fleeing, or going to that meadow. I think they just came here when the news spread." She pointed toward the opposite slope, where a makeshift camp of Tibetans had appeared.
Shan stood on uncertain legs and began jogging down the slope. He found Lokesh sitting at the shore of the rising lake, washing stones. "Touch the water," he said excitedly. "It is different water." It was his tonde. Lokesh was washing his charm stones in the water.
Shan bent to the water and touched it, cupped it in his hands and washed his face. The liquid seemed to tingle his skin somehow. Perhaps there was carbonation in the water, from its being pushed deep into the rock. "Already people are saying these waters have great powers," Lokesh added.
Shan handed his friend the staff he had brought from the cave. The old Tibetan stared at it, then slowly, as if it might be painful to touch, he laid his fingertips on it, the way he might take a pulse. "I hope they had time to settle in," his old friend whispered, and Shan saw the sudden sadness in his eyes.
Settle in. "Yes, they settled in," Shan said, and wondered how many of the Tibetans knew. Lepka and Lokesh both seemed to have understood where Jokar and Winslow had gone, as if they had been able to read something in the two men that had been invisible to Shan.
One of the two army trucks remaining in the camp pulled out, behind a heavy truck towing the last of the trailers. The second army truck began moving but suddenly turned at a right angle toward the center of the valley, along the edge of the water. It stopped near the center, a hundred feet from where Shan stood, and the two soldiers in the front seat seemed to argue about something. Then the engine died and four soldiers climbed down from the bay. They moved slowly, without their usual aggression, with none of the usual fire in their eyes. They formed a small group at the tailgate, working something out of the bay, then abruptly cleared to the opposite side of the truck, and Lin appeared from behind them, alone, holding a long bundle wrapped in a bright white sheet. He looked at the Tibetans on the shore of the lake, who stopped what they were doing and stood, silently watching him. As Lin began walking toward Shan, Lhandro and Nyma stirred from where they stood in one of the ruined fields and approached warily. Lokesh pulled himself up with the staff.
As Lin bent to lay the shrouded figure on the soil near Shan, Lhandro stepped forward, arms extended, and accepted Anya's body. Lin silently surrendered her, his hand lingering on the girl's covered head. "She should be with her people," he said in a whisper. He swayed for a moment, as if about to collapse. "But don't give her to those birds," he said to Lhandro. "Please," he added in his brittle voice. "I couldn't stand to think she'd been taken by the birds."
No one spoke for a long time. The water lapped near their feet.
"The valley can make room for our Anya," an old man said, and Lin turned to nod as Lepka stepped into their small circle. "There are also remains of Chinese, from that temple." Lepka lifted an object in his hand. A shovel. "I need your help," he said to Lin.
The colonel stared, his eyes squinting as if he had trouble seeing what it was Lepka held.
"I need your help, Xiao Lin," Lepka repeated gently, and pointed to the base of the slope, where several tall trees cast their shade. The old man turned with his shovel and the colonel followed him with small steps and downcast eyes, like a confused boy.
Xiao Lin, Lepka had called Lin. Little Lin. Shan looked back at the soldiers. They stared at their colonel, some with fear, some with anger, some with wonder.