It seemed like days had passed inside the karez, but it was only early afternoon by the time they reached the highway. Akzu embraced Jakli repeatedly as they departed, making her promise with each hug to be at the nadam early, until she began to smile, then softly laugh. Her aunts had secretly made a wedding dress, he told her, so she had to come early but act surprised. Before the Kazakh left, Shan asked Jakli if she knew the way to the camp where Marco had sent the Tadjik thief. She consulted her uncle briefly. Wild Bear Mountain, Marco had said, near the ford of Fragile Water Creek. They did not know the camp but they knew where to find a guide who would know.
"I thought a dust demon had taken you," Akzu said in a distant voice before departing. "They do that sometimes." He had listened in seeming disbelief when they had explained their passage through the tunnels, and now looked at the sand on their clothes, their skin, their hair and nodded solemnly, as though confirming his suspicion. "Sometimes, they bring you back just as sudden," the old Kazakh observed. "You wouldn't remember," he added solemnly.
Kaju studied the landscape with an unsettled expression, as if looking for other escape routes. He would have to come back in five days, for the next class. He had promised the American, for that was the appointed time for Deacon's son to return to his parents.
Jakli seemed to sense Shan's thoughts as they drove west, away from the desert. "He's out there, with Sophie," she reassured him. "Marco will find your friends. There is no one better for the task. He will take them to safety. They're probably on the way to his cabin now, singing Russian love songs with him."
Half an hour later Jakli eased to a stop at a crossroads jammed with people. Near the intersection was a shack with a wire fence behind it, holding a flock of goats. They stopped and walked to the gathering. More than two dozen people crowded the intersection, some carrying stones, others sitting in reverence before a growing cairn of rocks. Some were listening to a man who sat atop a broad log that served as a corner fencepost, speaking with great animation. A man on a horse rode up and asked where the holy place was. The man on the post pointed to the rocks and the other man dismounted, untied the wing of a large bird from behind his saddle, and walked to the rocks to fasten it to the cairn.
It was a shrine. For the miracle that had happened. The people were kneeling now. The rocks were arranged in a narrow pyramid nearly eight feet high. A rope was tied to a stick at the top, staked to the ground fifteen feet away, and a fragment of cloth was attached to it with Tibetan words. A prayer flag. Shan watched in confusion. Buddhists, down from the mountains, were putting on prayer flags. The Kazakhs and Uighurs were putting on feathers, pieces of fur, and the wing of a bird.
Shan walked through the excited throng, asking questions. The two Tibetan holy men had come through the day before, in the late afternoon, resting their donkeys at the crossroads. Others came with them, nine or ten others, old women, small children, a herder with a bad leg, some on horses or donkeys, some walking. Like a pilgrimage in the old days, a woman with grey hair said.
One of the holy men, the one in the Buddhist robe, had spoken with each of the followers, even the children. The other man, whose eyes twinkled when he spoke, had also listened to them, not to their words, but to their bodies, finding the words spoken by arms and legs and stomachs that no one else could hear. He had given herbs to some and advice for exercise of limbs to others. A dropka woman galloped up with a baby, asking the thin one with the red robe to give it a name. Once, Shan recalled, Tibetans had always asked lamas for the names of their children. Then the robed one had assigned journeys of atonement. This woman was to go see her brother whom she had not spoken with in ten years because he had given her a lame horse, that woman was to go a mountain lake and drink its waters, then build a shelter that wild animals might use in the winter. The lame man was sent to meditate where young colts slept. "A synshy," the man who had just ridden in said knowingly. "The man in the robe was a horsespeaker." Several in the crowd nodded knowingly.
But that had not been the miracle, the man on the post said. The miracle had come later, when the knobs arrived. Shan's head snapped up. A chill crept into his stomach. Only three young knobs, in a small truck. They seemed to have been searching for the holy men, and two stood guard with guns while the third, a woman knob, talked excitedly on the radio.
The people had gotten angry and told the knobs that they should be looking for the killers of children, not old men. The knobs had gotten out hand chains then, and somebody had thrown a rock at one of the knobs. They had pulled out their weapons and one shot a gun in the air, several shots, on automatic. The man with the robe- Gendun- covered his ears then, and when the gun stopped he lowered his hands and asked if the man was finished. You make it very hard to talk, Gendun had said, most earnestly, and the Chinese man who fired the gun had looked confused, then apologized.
Then Gendun had stood in front of the knob who had been hit by the stone and told the people not to hurt the young soldiers. He had spoken to Lokesh and Lokesh took the chains and fastened a pair on Gendun, then Gendun had fastened a pair on Lokesh. The lama had then asked the knobs to sit for a moment with them, to share some food. Two of the knobs had done so, and Gendun said a prayer while a herder handed out pieces of nan bread. Gendun had asked the knobs their names and he said the knob woman had a strong face and would make a good wife for a herder. People had laughed.
But even that was not the miracle, the man on the post said dramatically. The miracle came next, when a limousine arrived and the Jade Bitch appeared. People had shuddered, some had run away. The prosecutor had stood silently, looking at the Tibetans and the knobs. Then Gendun had walked in his chains to stand in front of her, smiling. She had stared, a long time, as if in a trance. Then she had spoken on her radio and told the knobs to leave, to release the two men and leave. The woman knob had argued, and the protector had shouted at her. Before the knobs left the prosecutor made the knobs give her the chains used on the two men. People had thought she was going to take them away herself, to her prison camp at the foot of the mountains. But the Jade Bitch had walked to the two men, dropped the chains at their feet, and driven away. That was the miracle.
The chains, where she had dropped them, were under the cairn.
Shan looked in silence at the cairn, then at Jakli.
"She just doesn't want to share them with the knobs," Jakli said. "She wants them all to herself, without the knobs knowing."
"I don't know," Shan said, staring again at the cairn. "Sometimes miracles do happen." He walked away to find a rock for the cairn, then asked the man on the post what had happened afterward. Night had come, he said, and they had built a fire and talked under the stars. But when the sun rose the holy men were gone.
Shan gazed toward the desert. It would be night again in a few hours, and cold.
"They don't even have a compass," Jakli said with a tormented voice.
"No. They do," Shan assured her. "Just not the kind you or I could read."
"Marco and Sophie are at the Well by now," Jakli said, but her voice showed no certainty. "Sophie could find them. Sophie could smell them. Marco probably went to Karachuk. Maybe Osman is helping now. And Nikki," she added softly.
But thirty minutes later as they drove into the next village, Marco and Sophie were in the middle of the street, surrounded by Public Security troops.
Jakli eased the truck behind a building and they looked around the corner. The village was under the control of the knobs. They had erected a security checkpoint in the square and were checking the papers of everyone in the village and all those traveling down the highway. A queue of over a hundred people stood in front of a table where three officers examined papers and stamped the hands of those who had been cleared. Two knob soldiers with automatic rifles stood at the door of a blunt-nosed grey bus with heavy wire on the windows. Half a dozen forlorn faces looked out of the wire. Beside the bus was a grey troop truck, and two hundred feet beyond that a red utility truck sat with two men in the front seat. The Brigade was watching. Watching not the crowd, but the knobs.
Jakli desperately searched the faces of those in the line. She looked back at Shan anxiously, then searched again and sighed with audible relief as she noticed a teenage girl walking by. Jakli pulled the girl around the corner and spoke in low, urgent tones. She raised the girl's hand and studied the image placed there by the knobs. A circle of five stars in red ink. She released the girl's hand and spoke a moment more, then the girl walked briskly away and Jakli pulled Shan into the line.
Jakli asked the man ahead of them what the Eluosi with the beautiful camel had done. It was Marco Myagov, the man said in an admiring tone, with his silver racer. Marco, he explained, had done nothing except to refuse to leave his camel while he waited in line, so an officer had ordered him to wait until everyone else was done. As the man spoke the camel gave a small snort. She was looking directly at Jakli and Shan, cocking her head as if about to speak to them. Marco followed her gaze, gave a small frown as he recognized them, and looked quickly away.
Shan watched the officers at the table as they worked. They looked at faces first, then papers. Woman and children were passed through with a quick glance at papers and a nod. Shan saw a Han man go through with the same treatment. An old man got through without a second look, and another. The knobs were looking for someone in particular. Not a Han. A man, but not an old man. Shan's only hope was that they found him soon, or Shan would be on the bus, as one more illegal caught in the sweep.
There was a sudden commotion at the front of the line. One of the officers was standing, telling a man to take his hat off. He pulled the man to the side and questioned him while the other two officers carefully examined the man's papers.
"Who is it?" Shan asked quietly.
Jakli spoke to the man in front again. "He doesn't know. Some Tadjik. It's good. We need the time."
For what, Shan thought. Another miracle?
They were adjacent to Marco now. He was singing one of his songs, in the Turkic tongue, raising laughter among many of those in earshot.
Shan asked Jakli to explain.
She listened for a moment and blushed. "It is about camels. About camels making love and having trouble with their humps." As she spoke she breathed another sigh of relief. Shan followed her gaze toward a figure in the shadows of an alley that opened into the street ten feet from where Marco stood. Marco had seen the figure too. He cast a quick wink at Jakli, then spoke into Sophie's ear and dropped her reins.
The silver camel exploded into an ear-splitting bray and bolted straight through the line, scattering all those nearby. Marco shouted after her, then called for someone to catch her. More than twenty people broke into pursuit, including the figure in the alley, who ran headlong into Shan and Jakli, pushing them both to the ground while he shouted for the camel. Several hands grabbed Shan. Something moist touched his hand, and a hat was thrust low over his head. The instant he regained his feet Jakli pulled him into the crowd chasing Sophie. A moment later the camel quieted under the hands of an old Kazakh, who led her back to Marco. Jakli pushed Shan into the shadow of a doorway. He looked at his hand. It was stamped with a ring of five red stars. They wandered around the square, casually showing their stamp to the knobs they passed.
Another man was singled out for special attention at the table of officers.
"Ask someone," Shan said in a low voice, "if it is a another Tadjik."
It was, a nearly toothless old woman said, and the chill returned. Suddenly, despite Bao's desperate rush to find the subversives, Public Security wanted a Tadjik.
"The fools don't know," the old woman added. "The Tadjiks have gone to Yoktian. Director Ko is giving all of them new clothes, American blue jeans. A special tribute to the social contributions of Tadjiks."
As Jakli pulled him into the shadows at the edge of the street, Shan stared at the old woman in confusion. The Brigade was not only watching to see what Tadjiks the knobs might snare, it was separately trying to entice Tadjiks to town. So they could turn over the Tadjiks to the knobs, Shan wondered, or so they could prevent the knobs from finding Tadjiks? Or at least one specific Tadjik.
Jakli brought them bottled orange drinks from a vendor who sold goods from a rug in the corner of the square, and they sat against the wall of a building, watching the knobs like almost everyone else in the village. In another thirty minutes the line was done, and Marco and Sophie were led to the table. The village began to close in, as if expecting an entertainment. But Marco stared straight ahead and spoke in low respectful tones. He had his identity papers. When the officer finished, however, he stood in front of Sophie, his face eighteen inches from her nose, and began a loud harangue about how undisciplined she was, how animals doing work for the people should respect the people, that she had wasted the valuable time of the Public Security Bureau. Shan had once seen a tamzing held for a horse by a furious Red Guard who had been delayed on a river bridge because of the slow horse and its cart, and wondered absently if this was the same man, thirty years later.
When the officer finished he lingered, glaring at Sophie. Sophie cocked her head as if to study him, put her nose closer, and erupted in a sound that was half snicker, half bray, an action that sprayed the man with her saliva.
Everyone laughed but Marco and the officer. Marco began to urge Sophie away, but the officer pulled his pistol and held it toward her head. With a chill Shan saw Marco's hand creep inside his coat. The crowd was instantly sober, and scared.
When the shot came Shan's head jerked back in the reflexive agony instilled by hearing so many knob pistols so many times before- in public executions in Beijing, where those seated nearest were sprayed with blood and particles of brain tissue. And in the gulag, where three times he had seen knob guards shoot monks as they calmly and defiantly recited their mantras.
But the shot came from behind, he suddenly realized, near the bus, where another officer held his gun in the air. The knob by Sophie scowled but lowered his gun, and the man who had fired in warning approached him. He had the same lightless eyes as the first man but more grey in his hair. He stared at Marco for a long moment, then ceremoniously picked up the ink stamp on the table and stamped a ring of red stars on Sophie's nose.
The knobs climbed into their trucks and in five minutes were gone, escorting the bus down the Kashgar highway. Moments later the Brigade truck eased out of the square, following the knobs.
Marco was at the village water trough when they reached him, where Sophie drank long as he washed away the red ink. "Four hours. Four damned hours wasted here," he groused.
With longing in his heart Shan watched Marco steer Sophie away into the Taklamakan at a brisk trot. Then he turned to Jakli with a new urgency. "That Tadjik Hoof holds the key. We have to find him before Ko or the knobs do."
Their sturdy horses climbed for hours, following a teenage girl from the camp where they left the truck. They rode hard, trotting constantly, their horses struggling, the girl's eyes always on the trail, where patches of ice could suddenly appear to trip the horses, or on the sky, where helicopters could materialize with even worse effect. Twice they stopped at small herding camps, where each time fresh mounts were given to Shan and Jakli. None of the herders argued. At the first camp the girl said it was for the zheli boys who were dying, and the horses were quickly offered with a cup of tea. At the second a man was talking about the holy men, and when Jakli said Shan was with them, the remounts were offered without their having asked.
They arrived at a solitary yurt so high that its water ran from a small ice field a few hundred feet above the camp. A middle aged woman wearing a soiled red apron sat by a fire at the front of the yurt, threading kernels of sun-hardened cheese onto a string. A boy of no more than six stood close against the felt of the yurt, out of the wind, methodically working a butter churn. The woman nodded greetings, then broke a corner from a brick of black tea and dropped it into a kettle at the edge of the fire. Her face was friendly but sad, and Shan remembered. This was the camp of Osman's uncle, where a son had died recently of fever.
The woman poured the tea and said the herders would return by sundown, then pointed to the cushions and blankets piled high at the rear of the yurt. Shan felt desperately tired and knew his face showed it.
He was awakened from his slumber by a chorus of bleating sheep. A deep blush of pink over the western peaks was all that remained of daylight. The fire was blazing, and a grey-haired man squatted before it with a tin mug of tea. Sheep were everywhere. The yurt seemed to be an island in a sea of sheep. Shan saw two more figures in heavy dark chubas, moving among the sheep. One, an older woman, was walking toward the fire. The other, wearing a black felt cap, hung back, sitting on a rock, with a big mastiff guard dog.
There were more dogs, Shan saw. Two mastiffs lay near the fire, one with its head over the other's back, both watching Shan suspiciously as he stepped toward the fire. A smaller white dog, crawling under the sheep, emerged from the flock and ran into the yurt. When Jakli and their guide awoke they all ate bowls of yogurt with nan bread and some kind of dried meat, their hosts nodding politely but speaking more to their dogs than to their guests. Jakli provided a package of hard round candies from her bag, which were enthusiastically accepted and passed around. Finally, his hunger apparently outstripping his fear, the man in the black hat approached.
Shan was not sure he would recognize the man, but as soon as he entered the circle of the firelight Shan remembered how the Tadjik had jumped on him. He recognized the eyes, which had been so wild with emotion when the man had pounded Shan's chest.
"We have come to speak with you, Hoof," Jakli said.
The Tadjik only grunted, and accepted a bowl of yogurt from the woman.
"He knows sheep," the woman said, as if Hoof needed to be defended. "Most of the dogs like him." Even more dogs had appeared when the meal began. Shan counted seven and wondered how many more might still be in the shadows. If herders couldn't make their family of children, they made a family of their dogs.
When Hoof sat beside Shan, he thought nothing of it. But as the man gulped down his food, Shan noticed the nervous way he looked at Jakli. The woman poured the last of the tea and five minutes later, as he turned his head back from watching the rising moon, Shan discovered that only Jakli and Hoof were left at the fire.
"It's a long way from anywhere," Shan observed.
"They have a radio," Hoof said, "to listen to music." He shrugged. "Mostly it doesn't work."
Jakli rose to push a stick into the fire. Shan saw that Hoof tensed his muscles as she moved, as if he thought she would hit him.
"Seems like a long time ago, when we were at Karachuk," Shan said.
"Seems like," Hoof agreed with a sigh, then he looked up and spoke hurriedly. "I came here straight away, like Marco said."
"We're not here for Marco."
The announcement seemed to confuse Hoof. His brow furrowed and he stared into the fire. He muttered a syllable Shan did not understand, and one of the mastiffs came and sat by him, watching Shan and Jakli.
"Xinjiang, it's a hard place," Shan said with a sigh. "People have to do a lot of things they don't want to do. If we had a choice we wouldn't do things that hurt other people."
"When I was young," Hoof said in a nervous, high-pitched voice, "my father had a herd of sheep. But the government took them away, they said no one could have private property. Now you can have private property but I don't have my sheep. Someone else has them. I looked for my sheep, in the market, but couldn't see them anywhere." His voice had a slow, confused quality to it. He was not the same insolent man Shan had seen at Karachuk. "I asked a Chinese in the city. He laughed, and said probably they were sent to Beijing to feed the Chairman."
An owl called.
"My mother died last year but she lived in Tadjikstan," he said morosely, referring to the independent Tadjik homeland. "They wouldn't give me papers to go bury her."
Papers. Hoof meant travel papers, to go over the border. "You mean, you went out with Marco."
"My brother did. Not with Marco," the Tadjik said with a glance to Jakli. "Little Marco. I offered to pay for him to go, but Little Marco paid him, because he was so good with the animals."
"Nikki," Jakli said, in a hushed, emotional tone. She glanced at Shan with a smile.
"Right," Hoof said. "Nikki." He looked at Jakli and cocked his head, as if remembering something. "He paid my brother to go on more caravans. I like that Nikki. He laughs good."
Jakli smiled again and stroked the head of Hoof's dog.
"But someone asked you about it later," Shan said. "Someone in a uniform." If Hoof had been stealing information about Americans from Karachuk, it must have been for Bao.
"Not a uniform," Hoof shot back, as though anxious to correct him. "I mean not at first. I wouldn't have done it if I had known who he was on that first day. I thought he was a merchant, looking for Western goods. I was in the market in Yoktian. He just wanted to know about getting out, about the safe way for some friends of his to go across. He gave me drinks. We walked around the market. He gave me new shoes, just because I saw them and liked them. Said maybe if we became good friends, he could get me some sheep. Even get me a job. I never had a Han friend. I thought maybe I should have one. I think you have to have one," he said, looking to Shan as though for confirmation, "if you want to be successful in our world." Shan remembered when they had first met, how Hoof had boasted that he had Chinese friends in order to impress Shan.
"Maybe later you found out he was a knob in disguise," Shan ventured.
"A big one," Hoof nodded with a haunted expression. "An officer. I didn't know until later, when he wore his uniform once to meet me on the highway."
"Bao Kangmei?" Shan asked.
Hoof looked up with surprise. "Not that bastard. The other one. The thin one with the bad skin."
Sui. Hoof meant he had been recruited by Sui.
Hoof looked into the fire. "I had known a knob once before. He owned a gas station, after ownership was allowed. He ordered all the knob cars to come for gas."
"Later, though," Shan suggested, "this officer wanted other things. To know about Lau and people close to Lau. About foreigners."
Hoof shrugged. "He said he was going to leave the knobs, go into business. Business, it's international. Sure, he needed to meet foreigners. Americans especially. He really wanted to see Americans and things Americans did. I gave him an empty can of American soda once from Karachuk and he paid me more money than I can make in a month herding sheep. An empty can," the Tadjik repeated incredulously.
The sheep were all asleep, around the edge of the camp, a soft grey carpet under the moon. Beyond them one of the mastiffs sat upright on a rock, facing the darkness beyond.
"So you took him some more things from the Americans."
"Not much. You stopped me."
"But then you left Karachuk. The same night. You were planning to leave anyway, when Marco sent you here. You were planning to meet your friend from the knobs," Shan suggested.
Hoof nodded. "There were two of them there. The knob and another, who wore dark glasses even though it was after sunset. They were sitting in a red car waiting for me, drinking beer. The one with the glasses took me for a ride in the car while the knob sat on a rock and drank. As he drives he says he could help me. Says he was going to be my new friend, and he gave me money, for nothing. He asked me what I wanted most. I said sheep, and he said no problem." Hoof looked up at Shan. "If he can get some sheep for me, my brother and I can start our own camp in the spring. My brother needs to meet my new friend. Don't work for the knobs, I told him. They don't pay you as much."
It seemed to have gotten much colder. Hoof was working for the Brigade now. Shan moved closer to the fire. "So that night when you left," he pressed. "You saw both of them. Your friend who drives the red truck. Near the highway. Late."
"My new friend said he didn't have much time. But he said he wanted me to watch something. Said here's what happens to people who try to take away your business. The knob with the bad skin, he was just standing there smiling, like it was all a joke when the gun was pointed at him. But bang, the one with the red car just pulled the trigger. In the heart, two times. I ran. I came here, because Marco had said so."
Shan looked into the burning embers. Hoof had been a witness, he had seen Ko Yonghong shoot the man with the pockmarked face, Lieutenant Sui. Then Hoof had disappeared, making Ko nervous. He wanted Hoof. But so did Bao. With Hoof on his side, Bao could destroy Ko. But how had Bao found out?
Suddenly the dog leapt up and began barking toward the darkness on the north side of the camp. Jakli groaned and pointed. In the distance, on the horizon, two streaks of brilliant white light lit the sky.
"Flares," Hoof muttered. "We see a lot of them lately."
"Flares?" Shan asked. "From who?"
"The knobs. They like to search at night sometimes, catch people off guard."
As Shan looked at the fading streaks in the sky he remembered the dropka woman's words, how the demon had stopped attacking Alta because he was called away by lightning. It was how demons spoke with each other, she had said. She was right, he thought sadly. It was how demons spoke with each other. But if Alta's killer had been called back by Sui, if he had been working for Sui, why curse him when he saw the flares? Because he had not finished his work with the boy perhaps. Because the boy had still been alive.
They were silent a long time, watching the darkness where the flares had been.
"Before you came here," Shan suggested at last, "you saw your brother, didn't you?"
"On the way here. I said I'd be gone for a long time, to a secret place. But I wanted to tell him about my new business, about how we can get sheep. Good money, when I get done here," Hoof said. "Just cooperate, I told my brother, or you'll be like that dead Chinese."
But Bao, Shan realized with a sinking feeling, was already in business with Hoof's brother. Don't work for the knobs, Hoof had told him. They're not paying as well. That was how Bao had discovered that Ko was Sui's killer. That was how Bao had obtained a shiny new car from Ko, by divulging to Ko what he had heard about Sui's murder. Bao was learning about the new economy. Ko had killed Sui, but now Ko had a new competitor. And if Bao could find Hoof, if he could produce the witness to Sui's murder, he would have the means to destroy Ko, to take over all of Ko's lucrative bounty hunting.
Hoof sighed. "It's a hard thing, business," he said, his eyes lingering for a moment on Jakli, as if he had something to say to her. But he turned away, and after a moment spoke to the fire. "I only wanted to bury my mother."
In the morning Jakli was gone. She had said nothing, left no word other than to tell their guide that she would see Shan at the nadam. Everyone knew Jakli would go to the nadam, the Kazakh girl said with a flush of excitement, because her wedding was to be the main event of the festival. But not everyone knew that from there she would leave, from there she would start her new life.
And beginnings were always built on endings, a lama had once told Shan.
Shan described a place with a high cliff, with a meadow across the road, and asked if the girl could take him there. "Not far," she said, "maybe two hours." They rode hard until they reached the road, then walked the horses along the road until they found the spot where Jakli had left the flowers the day she had driven him to Senge Drak.
He thanked the girl, then found a trail that led up the high ridge and in half an hour he emerged on a small shelf of land that overlooked the road. He dismounted and tied his horse to a tree.
She was there, kneeling at a low, broad mound of earth on which autumn asters were blooming. He plucked a piece of reddish heather and dropped it on the mound beside her.
Jakli smiled through her tears. "The great detective," she said in greeting.
"I was worried about you."
"With you and Marco both watching over me, how could anything go wrong?" she asked, and began pulling away dried leaves that were caught among the flowers. "My great uncle who was the synshy, the horse talker, he said that horses have spirits that roam after death. That they may settle in another horse, far away."
Shan understood. "Even as far as America," he suggested.
Jakli nodded and continued clearing the grave of her horse, the horse that had been killed by the soldiers so many years before. There was no one else for her, no other way of saying goodbye. Her father had disappeared, her clan was leaving. This was her way of ending it, of leaving her old life behind.
"My uncle, the synshy, he rode a stallion until he was almost ninety, the horse almost thirty-five. When his horse died, he insisted on burying it himself, by himself. He dug for two days, a huge hole, beside the body, like I did here, to let the body slide in. But at the last moment the earth crumbled and the horse fell on top of him. It killed him. My aunt said to leave him there, it was the right thing for them to be in the same grave. At the funeral my father said that Zhylkhyshy Ata, the horse deity, had called my uncle away to work with his herd in the heavens."
When Shan looked, Jakli's eyes were full not of grief but of doubt. "I feel like I am just abandoning them all. Like I'm only thinking of myself."
"Red Stone clan is leaving too."
"I mean, all the Kazakhs. I mean the Maos and the purbas. Look at all the Americans have sacrificed to come here and help, and it feels like I'm doing the opposite."
"You're not running away," Shan said, but Jakli offered no reply. He knelt and helped her clear off the grave.
She thanked him when they were through and asked him to leave. He did, but only when she promised to go see her new wedding dress. "Only if you promise to be there," she said, playfulness back in her eyes. "Go to town. Find Ox Mao, he will take you to nadam, he's a good Kazakh."
"I can't. I must speak with the boys about Micah. We must find him, make sure he's safe."
"He is safe. If his dropka family is hiding, no knob will ever find him. And Marco," she added, more soberly, "Marco will be at nadam with Lokesh and your lama. Or he will know where we must go with the Maos to rescue them."
Shan found the big-boned Kazakh at the restaurant in town but did not immediately ask him to guide him to the horse festival. He had the Mao draw him a map and began walking toward the outskirts of town, staying in the shadows, wary of boot squads, ducking into doorways sometimes when the wind whipped sand against his cheek so hard it stung.
The People's Clinic of Yoktian was a shabby one-story building with a corrugated tin roof and mud-brick walls, marked by a truck near its front door that bore the weathered emblems of an ambulance. The truck appeared to have been abandoned. Its tires were flat, its sides corroded and rusted. A young girl in the front, playing with the steering wheel, ducked down as Shan walked by.
Inside, his first impression was that the clinic itself had been abandoned. Sand blew across the lobby as he entered, and a skinny dog looked up from where it lay in the center of the floor, then returned to its nap. Corridors ran to the left and right, the one on the left protected by a set of double doors with rubber seals.
The pungent scent of ammonia greeted him as he swung the doors open, and the only occupant of the hall, a grey-haired woman mopping the floor, looked up and gripped her mop tightly with both hands, as if he might challenge her for it. Stepping cautiously down the hall, he glanced into each room, looking for one with a lock on the door. Of the ten rooms in the wing, six were occupied, one by a sleeping nurse, but none had locks.
Shan found what he was seeking in the second corridor, a door with a lock that led to a small ward with half a dozen beds. He pushed and the door swung open. Only one bed, at the rear, was in use, and the old waterkeeper had been tied to it. One end of a long elastic bandage, the kind wrapped around sprains, had been knotted around a leg of the bed. The other end was tied tightly around the lama's hands. The waterkeeper had stretched the bandage enough to reach the floor, where he sat in the lotus position. The lama wasn't meditating, Shan saw, but staring with a curious expression at a window six feet away. A padlock was on the window, fastening it to the sill.
The old man simply nodded when Shan sat beside him, as though he had expected Shan, then gestured with his bound hands toward the window. "When the wind blows just right," the waterkeeper said in a rasping voice, "a tiny stream of sand blows in the top corner." He stared at the window and nodded. "If no one touched it there would be a dune across my bed in a few months." His voice was full of awe, as if the stream of sand was beautiful and his bed was predestined to be buried.
"Rinpoche," Shan said hurriedly, "is there a guard?" He looked down. The man's fingertips were blue. Shan began untying the bandage. "I can get you back to the Raven's Nest," he explained quickly.
"There has to be a crack," the old lama said serenely, "or nothing can get in."
Shan stopped and stared at him.
Suddenly there were feet running in the corridor. Fat Mao appeared, breathing hard, followed by Ox Mao, who shut the door tight and pressed against it, as if to hold off intruders. Fat Mao offered no greeting but darted to the window, extending a screwdriver, which he used to quickly pry up the hasp that held the window lock. He threw the window open and gestured for Shan. But before Shan could react Ox Mao had him, pulling him up, dragging him to the window. The two men lifted Shan and threw him onto the sand outside, then leapt out themselves. Fat Mao closed the window and pulled Shan around the end of the building, where a nurse stood at an open door, waiting for them.
Moments later they watched from an empty room as the waterkeeper was led outside by two knob soldiers, bound not by the elastic bandage but by steel manacles.
A thickset figure appeared behind the waterkeeper, wearing a satisfied smile. Bao Kangmei. He called out to the soldiers, who halted as Bao circled the waterkeeper. There was no fear in the lama's eyes. He simply stared at Bao with an interested, curious expression.
"Bao doesn't know," Fat Mao said, "he just suspects. He will take him to Glory Camp, to the holding cells the knobs use there." But Shan was not reassured by the Uighur's words. The waterkeeper was no longer a prisoner of the prosecutor, or the Brigade. It would not take long for Bao to understand which of the old men he had detained was a lama, which had been the subject of his subversive Tibetan poem.
Arms akimbo, Bao stood for a moment, looking at the clinic entrance as though hoping for a larger audience, then with an abrupt gesture he dismissed the men, who shoved the old lama into their truck. Shan watched the truck speed down the road with an ache in his heart, remembering the lama's words. There has to be a crack or nothing can get in. He had heard the words in a teaching, spoken by another lama in a gulag barracks. The waterkeeper hadn't been speaking about sand, but enlightenment. It will only be enlightenment that saves us, he was saying, enlightenment that reaches into some dark place through a crack that had not existed before.
As the knobs' truck drove away it revealed a small red car that had been parked beyond it. Bao lit a cigarette and surveyed the landscape with a satisfied smile, staring toward town, then at the clinic itself, staring so long that the nurse flattened herself against the wall in fear. Finally he stepped to the driver's door of the car, and paused. There was a beetle crossing the road not far from their window. Bao marched to the beetle, bent to examine it, then straightened, smiled, and smashed it with a hard thrust of his boot.
It was late morning the next day when Shan and Ox Mao dismounted on the flat crest of a high ridge where updrafts kept dried autumn leaves hanging in the air, like chips of pigment on the palette of the sky. The Kazakh had pointed out a rider approaching along the top of the ridge. It was Akzu, Shan saw after a moment, wearing a red vest embroidered with horse and bird shapes.
"It's over," the headman announced with a broad smile as he dismounted. "All the zheli boys are safe. We had a message from that last shadow clan, a note sent on a dog. Their zheli boy is protected they said. He will come to Stone Lake in three days. And some Maos stayed in the high mountains," Akzu explained, still grinning. "They were cutting down trees, causing small avalanches, blocking all the roads so knob patrols cannot pass through. The Maos are still up there, watching. That last boy is safe until we meet him there. We can celebrate." The old Kazakh appeared truly happy, not just because he thought the boys were safe but also, Shan suspected, because Red Stone clan had found a way to beat the Brigade's Poverty Scheme.
Akzu circled around Shan several times, then handed him a tattered fox fur cap and a pair of badly scratched sunglasses. "Nadam, it's a special thing, for Kazakhs," he said, shaking his head. "Once Han visitors came from Urumqi, a Party secretary. There was almost a riot." He inspected Shan, and pulled the fur cap lower on his head. "Your skin," he said. "It should be darker."
Before Shan understood his intentions, Akzu grabbed a handful of mud and began rubbing it on his cheeks. Ox Mao laughed. Shan looked at where the mud came from, a patch of wet soil where one of the horses had just urinated.
"You can at least smell like a horseman," Akzu observed with another grin. Shan stared at him a moment then, with a sigh of resignation, finished the task and, following Akzu's example, wiped his hands clean on his horse's tail.
The headman led them across the crest to a ledge that overlooked a long high valley. To the south and west it was bound by a vast wall of black rock, towering several hundred feet above the valley floor. To the north lay a turquoise lake, surrounded on three sides by evergreens and poplars. The impression created was of a vast chamber carved out of the mountains. The chamber was carpeted with olive-brown dried grass and furnished with perhaps fifty round cushions made of black, beige, brown, and white cloth.
Shan pulled the sunglasses from his face to better comprehend the scene. The cushions were yurts, arranged in groups of three and four, with rope corrals of camels and horses in the center of each group. Ox Mao let out a whoop of joy and left them standing on the ledge as he leapt on his horse and cantered down into the valley.
Twenty minutes later Akzu was guiding Shan through the nadam, leading their horses into a camp of three yurts. A boy called out, and Shan saw Malik and Batu running to greet him. They helped him remove his saddle and tether his horse, and then Malik, with a finger to his lips, stealthfully led him around the line of horses to a point where they could see between the first two tents. A group of six women were there, chattering happily, laughing, one even singing. A dress hung on a line between the tents and two of the women were fussing over the sleeves while another knelt at the hem. It was a beautiful white dress, onto which had been embroidered scores of flowers and horses. But there was no sign of the bride for the gown.
The other zheli boys were gathered in a tight knot around a squatting figure. Shan heard a familiar voice explaining to them how to make a whistle out of a willow branch. It was Jowa, who stood as he saw Shan and slowly shook his head. He had not found Gendun and Lokesh. And there was no sign of Marco.
The nadam was a portable Kazkah town, and the two boys were the perfect guides. Wearing an oversized felt vest with the fur cap and sunglasses to shadow his eyes, Shan wandered with them through the streets of the town. In the center of the camps a market had been organized. Loops of sweet dough fried in oil were hung on strips of vine and sold by old women; for an extra fen the loop was rolled in sugar. A mountain of green melons rose in front of an old man with one eye, who appeared to be selling very few since he was cheerfully distributing thick slices to all who passed by. Half of the vendors sold harnesses, hairwhips, or boots, the products, Shan suspected, of long solitary nights in dimly lit tents. He sat and watched the Kazakhs, nearly all of whom wore small, melancholy smiles. It was a time for celebration, but they all knew the one sad truth that no one dared speak. It was the last festival, the last time the clans of the region would be able to gather. Someone had nailed a board to a tree near the center of the encampment. On it were scraps of paper with handwritten messages and formal printed forms, announcing new Brigade work assignments for many of the Kazakhs. Small groups of two and three visited the board. Some gave sighs of relief as they read the board, and shook their friends' or clansmen's hands. Others read somberly then forlornly walked away to sit in the rocks. As he watched, Shan noticed Batu staring at the horizon with worry in his eyes. He too knew the killers had not stopped.
Beyond the camps extended a vast field. In other nadams, Malik said in a sad tone, there had always been a communal corral, with two or three hundred horses. But the Brigade had let them keep only their personal mounts. Hundreds of others had been collected by the Brigade in Yoktian, where they were being readied for shipment.
Riders were in the field, ten or twelve youths, galloping hard toward the north end of the valley. Khez khuwar, the boys explained, an ancient game of the clans. The girls would start twenty or thirty feet ahead of the boys, and they would race to the mark at the end of the field. If a boy caught up with a girl, she must let him kiss her, still riding, but once the girls reached the end of the field they were allowed to chase the boys to the other starting point, using riding whips to hit any boy who they passed.
They were interrupted by hoots and whistles from behind them, greetings for a rider approaching up the rough dirt road that led up the valley. Malik stood on a log and after a moment his face lit with excitement. "Jakli!" he exclaimed. Shan climbed up beside him and saw her reach the front of the camps on a lathered, exhausted horse.
As they turned back to sit on the log and watch the riders on the field, someone dangled a loop of fried dough in front of them. The boys laughed and began pulling away pieces of dough even before their benefactor could greet them. It was Jacob Deacon. He had come to record the events of the nadam, he said, and had brought more of the wooden tablets for the clansmen to keep with them when they were dispersed by the Brigade. But also, Shan knew, because he had hoped Micah might have come down out of his hiding place.
"They got a note," he said brightly, as if reading Shan's thoughts. "Just three more days."
The American was about to sit beside him when another round of jubilant shouts broke through the camps. Deacon laughed and pointed to the north. Marco was coming down from the trail by the lake, already so close they could see he was wearing an outlandish hat of felt stuffed with tall flowers and feathers. He led a heavily laden camel. "Presents from the groom's family," Deacon explained. "An old Kazakh custom."
People cheered louder as Marco approached, and then a minute later another excited murmur swept through the camps as two more riders came out of the trees. Not cheers this time, but a hushed call of important news, in a reverent tone. Two old men, one in a maroon robe, had emerged from the trees, following Marco.
Almost no words were spoken. Shan walked up the trail to meet the Tibetans, and silently took the reins of Gendun's horse to lead him into the Red Stone camp. He had found them at the Well of Tears, Marco confirmed, where they were fastening tiny red prayer flags into the rocks. Shan looked at Gendun's robe. The hem had been ripped open and the fabric torn away. The lama himself looked like something had been torn away from him. His eyes, glazed with fatigue and sadness, briefly acknowledged Shan, then settled back into his hundred-mile stare.
"Helicopters began looking in the desert," Lokesh said in a weary voice. "Marco said wandering souls would flee from the noise of helicopters, because they sound like demons." The old Tibetan sighed. "And his camel leapt pushing us with her nose. Gendon said this Russian and his camel are wise about spirits, so we agreed to go with them." He looked over the mountains, toward the desert. "It felt as though we were close to the Yakde Lama for a while. We will go back soon. There're so many lost ones out there," he said forlornly, and he let Shan lead him into one of the yurts, where Jowa was already arranging a sleeping pallet for Gendun.
Shan sat by the two old men until they were lost in slumber. When he looked up, Marco was there too, quietly watching the Tibetans. He looked as if about to speak, but seemed unable to find words. The Eluosi knelt and pulled the blanket over Gendun's shoulders. "I thought they were just old fools when I first met them," Marco confessed. "Now," he shook his head and looked into Shan's eyes and shrugged. "Sophie walked around them again and again when we found them, like she didn't recognize what type of creatures they might be. They wouldn't leave at first, and I wasn't sure what to do. I made as if to go, but Sophie went and sat with them. She wouldn't budge. She was ready for me to leave but she was going to stay with them." Marco scratched his head and creased his bushy eyebrows, as if still wondering about what his camel had done. "Then she heard a helicopter in the far distance and began pushing them toward me." He gazed at the two old men. "It's important they're here, isn't it?" he asked in a self-conscious tone. "I don't mean here, I mean… I don't know."
"Important that they are in the world," Shan suggested. As he spoke he saw a movement in the shadows at the back of the tent. The wild-eyed woman was there, the one who had thrown stones at him. She was rocking back and forth, a rolled blanket in her arms, giving no sign of having seen them.
As Marco rose, Shan saw Jowa standing at the tent flap. What was it Jowa had said that night so long ago? If the lamas didn't survive, what was the point of continuing? The thought brought a pang of pain, as it reminded him that there was another lama still out there, unprotected, with the knobs now at Glory Camp.
It was a day of celebration, a day of joy. The clans flowed in a steady stream into Red Stone camp to see the gifts brought for the bride's family and to present gifts of their own. They drank toasts to Nikki, the jokester who could be counted on to be late, just for effect. Horses were raced, in pairs and in fours, and even as many as twenty at a time, and skins of kumiss were passed about the jubilant onlookers.
After the races Batu pulled Deacon out onto the field. Another of the zheli threw a ball to the American, a baseball. Macro appeared with a bat, one he had brought from Nikki's room, and the youths of the camp began playing the American game. Jakli appeared and, making an exaggerated bow of greeting to Shan, ran to join the game, chiding everyone about how Nikki would hit balls into the mountains when he arrived. Deacon and Marco had declared themselves coaches, and the air was filled with laughter and shouts of "First base! Second base! She's out!" as Shan leaned back on the log, drowsy in the sunlight studying the game. Half the camp wandered to the field to watch, until suddenly there was a shout from the back, then a hushed silence. The crowd parted as a magnificent white horse pranced onto the field, led by Wangtu, the Kazakh driver Shan had talked with at Glory Camp.
Jakli was pushed forward by Marco, and with a shy smile Wangtu handed her the lead rope of the white horse. "I know when Nikki comes," he said loudly, so the crowd could hear, "he will bring five more like this. But," he said with a shrug, "at least I'm first."
The horse, Shan was certain, was the one they had seen at the rice camp. The fiery creature looked at Jakli and its eyes softened, then it stepped forward and she extended a hand. As it pushed its muzzle into her palm, the Kazakhs cheered. Malik shot away and a moment later returned with the silver bridle.
For the next hour many from the camps watched as Jakli raced up and down the field on her white horse, while others mounted and rode alongside her. At last she consented to a game of khez khuwar, and though many youths galloped forward for a kiss, none could catch her.
Shan found Malik under a tree at the north end of the field, sitting with one of the dogs resting its head on his legs. He sat without speaking, and they watched the riders in silence.
"I keep thinking about that day you found him," Shan said at last. "I keep thinking, what if there was something else? Something Malik decided to keep, something he didn't put back on the grave? That would be a sad thing, because Malik would start feeling he had done wrong, even though it was because he just wanted a remembrance of Khitai, and his memory of his friend might have a cloud over it."
"So many things have happened," Malik said, his eyes on the dog. "It's hard to understand." He sighed, and pain clouded his face. "I only wanted something because we were friends. I have almost never had friends. I mean just another boy. He was so gentle with the lambs." Malik unbuttoned the top of his shirt and removed the object that hung around his neck. A large silver gau, with a top of woven filigree.
"I didn't lie to you," the boy said. "You asked did he have anything on him. This was in the dirt, thrown by the rocks. I never looked inside," he added, then he handed it to Shan, rose with a small smile, as if glad to be free of the object, and walked with the dog toward the lake.
Shan took it to Lokesh, who now sat upright, watching the sleeping form of Gendun. The old Tibetan studied the gau reverently without opening it, but shook his head and handed it back. It was not the Jade Basket.
"Khitai might keep the Basket in a special place sometimes, to protect it," Lokesh said, then he grimaced and looked up at Shan. "That's why he gave it to the American boy, isn't it? To protect it."
Shan nodded. There was no other possibility now. Prosecutor Xu had been the one to confirm it. Two clans had been at the zheli field, two zheli friends, meeting in the lama field, to look for flowers. Khitai, sensing the danger and knowing the importance of the gau, had passed on the Jade Basket for safekeeping. Just for a few days, he probably told Micah, for they would be together soon, on the way to America.
Lokesh's head turned and twisted in several directions as he looked at the gau in Shan's hand, as if he had to get a precise angle on the mystery. "That last boy, the American boy, he has the sacred Basket," he said, as though needing to persuade himself.
And by now the killer knows it, Shan almost added. He remembered the flares in the mountains. Bao's patrols were out, still searching. Akzu had been wrong about one thing. Micah wasn't safe, or at least would not be when he left the mountains to go to Stone Lake.
Lokesh looked up, his eyes clouded. "How do these things happen?" he asked, and he seemed about to cry. Fires were lit as the sun went down, and still representatives of the other clans arrived at the Red Stone camp, bringing skins of kumiss to drink by the fire. They ate mutton stew and hard cheese, singing songs, some of the old women dancing ritual dances that none of the young generation knew. Marco and Deacon freely drank the fermented milk and taught each other new songs. Inside one tent Shan found Ox Mao with the slender woman, Swallow Mao, who held one of the small computers on her lap. She acknowledged Shan with a nod and kept busily tapping the keys as he sat nearby.
"That newborn program," she announced. "I downloaded files from the Brigade onto a disc. It's not just local, but all over southern Xinjiang. Not administered by Ko. It's higher up than Ko. Two hundred babies registered so far, with detailed notes on all birthmarks. Some parents are being asked to take examinations."
"Examinations?" Shan asked.
Ox Mao grunted angrily. "Administered by political officers," he whispered, as though speaking the words more loudly would violate the sanctity of the festival.
The moon was high overhead when sentries came down from the hills and new ones rode out. "Don't shoot anyone who's bringing white horses," Marco called after them, and everyone laughed. Jakli excused herself to go to the sleeping tent but as Shan watched from the fire she slipped around the yurt and sat in the moonlight by her new horse, who nuzzled her and made soft wickering sounds, sounds of contentment. A piece of paper was in her hand, and somehow Shan knew what it was. The letter she always carried, almost in tatters from being so often folded and unfolded. A letter from her Nikki.
Thunder woke them in the dawn, followed by shouts, then jubilation. Every Kazakh in the tent seemed to recognize the rumbling sound and rushed outside, leaving Deacon and Shan and the Tibetans alone, sitting up in their blankets, rubbing their eyes.
It was horses, scores of horses galloping through the camp, more horses than Shan had ever seen. Or maybe not, as he listened to the cries of the clans. He had seen them in Yoktian. The Kazakh herds had been freed. The gates at Yoktian had been opened despite the guards, and the animals had come home.
The excitement was palpable. Children leapt in the air. Dogs yelped. Guns were fired in the air. Everywhere people were embracing each other. The Brigade had not won after all, people were saying. It was Zhylkhyshy Ata, someone shouted, the horse deity had not forgotten the southern Kazakhs.
"This day will be written in the history of our people," an old woman called out, and her eyes flashed with the excitement of a young girl.
The celebration in the camp lasted through the morning. Shan was watching the zheli boys, who shone with delight as they walked through the herd, when Gendun touched his arm and pointed up the hill. Lokesh was waving at them from a large rock on the slope above the camp. When they arrived, he pointed excitedly to a beautiful circular pattern of lichen growing on a rock face above where he sat. It was a mandala, a mandala made by the deity who lived in the mountain.
The two Tibetans sat to contemplate the lichen rock as Shan found a perch on a boulder near the bottom of the ridge. He watched Jakli on her white horse, spontaneously laughing as she rode back and forth on the valley track below him, then took out the piece of paper he had taken from the body at Glory Camp. He stared at the strange abbreviations again, trying to make sense of their odd code.
He was leaning back on the rock in the sun when someone spoke his name.
"There is a feast tonight," Jakli said in an oddly shy tone. He looked up and saw the white horse tethered to a tree at the base of the ridge. "I would like you to sit with my family."
Shan nodded. "You honor me."
"It's not over, is it?" she asked after a moment, kneeling beside him.
"The general is coming," Shan said. "The killer is still free. The last boy is still unprotected. The Americans-" He stopped, seeing the anxious look in her eyes. She had felt guilty that she was leaving her people at such a time. "We can get word to you through Marco," he assured her. "Marco will know what happens. Everything will be all right," he said, doing his best to sound hopeful for her. He gestured toward the herd in the pasture beyond the tents. "The herds are free again."
"I was thinking about Marco," Jakli said. "He's going to be lonely. Everyone will be gone. He likes you. He would never say it, but I know it. Sometimes maybe you could write to him, from wherever you are."
Shan offered a thin smile. "Sure. Write him," he said, knowing it was impossible. Outcasts and fugitives didn't correspond.
"I wish-" She abruptly stopped and raised her hand. Rifle shots could be heard, not the random volley of the nadam revelers, but regularly spaced shots several seconds apart, each louder than the one before it. The last came from the top of the ridge above the encampment.
"The sentries!" Jakli shouted in alarm and stood. "Warning shots."
The encampment burst into frenzied activity. Shan could see children being herded toward the trees beyond the pasture. One group, a tight knot of boys with two Kazakh men carrying hunting rifles, ran from the Red Stone camp. The zheli were fleeing. Men collected in small groups at the entrance of each clan camp.
Shan looked up the slope and saw Lokesh, standing beside Gendun, waving at them. Shan gestured for them to get down and the Tibetans disappeared behind their rock. Moments later a moan escaped Jakli's lips as a sleek black utility vehicle appeared, followed by a troop truck. As the vehicles stopped at the first circle of tents and the troops leapt out, the knot tying itself in Shan's stomach grew ice cold. Knobs. One of the boot squads. He pushed Jakli toward the cover of a boulder.
"Maybe," he said without conviction, "it's just a security check."
Jakli just shook her head.
The knobs, clutching the compact submachine guns used for riot control, flanked their officers, as if expecting resistance, and marched forward, shouting at the inhabitants of the first camp to present papers. A line formed, but no papers were collected. One of the officers broke away and walked alone along the front of the encampments, studying the faces of those in line. Not walked. Strutted. It was Bao. He made a dismissive gesture and the first group of Kazakhs were ordered to go into their tents.
The knobs repeated the process at two, then three camps. Shan's mind raced. It could take an hour or two, and he and Jakli would have to stay on the hill, hidden, until they were done. He looked up the hill, wondering if he could steal his way to Gendun and Lokesh.
"Marco got away," Jakli said in a hollow voice. "I saw Sophie slip into the trees."
The knobs got no further than the sixth camp, the Red Stone camp. They did not bother to ask for papers, but just marched Akzu, his wife, and Malik toward the center, a hundred feet from their trucks. Bao paced around them, shouting at them. Shan glanced at Jakli. She had a knuckle in her mouth, and was clenching it so hard in her jaw that she seemed about to bite it off.
Bao barked at a soldier, who climbed into the truck and reappeared with chains in his hands.
When he looked back Jakli was looking at the mountains to the west and her eyes were full of tears. The knobs began to herd Jakli's relatives to the trucks.
Jakli slowly stood, still watching the mountains, as if Nikki might ride across a ridge at any moment. "It will be a good day for the races later," she said, the way she might make conversation over a mug of tea. Her tears were gone, replaced by a cool glint of determination.
Shan stood too, uncertain but scared.
Jakli began walking down the path to the camps. He stood alone for a moment, then caught up with her.
"You have been like an older brother, Shan," she said. "You have taught me things."
"We should stay back," Shan warned. The large rocks that hid them from view were thinning out. In another fifty feet they would be at the valley floor, in plain sight.
Jakli pointed to a rock. "There's a place with cover. The knobs will be gone soon."
She picked up Shan's hand and dropped something in it, then pushed him toward the rock. "Use it," she said urgently. "Get out of here. Go to your new life." She took a paper from her pocket and dropped it by her feet. "Nikki and I, that was like a dream. It could never have been part of this world. It will have to wait for another time." She took a step and paused, then spoke in a whisper, looking back up the slope toward the Tibetans. "Lha gyal lo." May the gods be victorious.
He darted to the rock but when he looked up she was not there. Jakli was walking to her white horse. If she rode hard, he realized, rode up the ridge where trucks could not go, she would make it.
But a moment later she slipped the saddle off, then the bridle, and slapped the horse's flank hard. It bolted away, up the ridge. Then Jakli stepped toward the knobs. There was a movement beside him, and suddenly Fat Mao was there, out of breath, shaking with exhaustion.
"I told her, don't do it," he gasped. "The knobs were all over Yoktian. Some in the school, dressed like teachers, waiting for the zheli. Some were secretly watching the horses, hoping the zheli would pick up their prizes so Bao could snare them. But she did it anyway. She said she didn't see any knobs, that she would make it look like an accident, like a gate was just left open. I told her these were boot squads. They had special techniques, they could hide and watch. Electronic surveillance. And you have three bowls already. If they take you, I told her, then you're gone, off to Kashgar, in some coal mine the next day. For the next few years."
The herd. Shan remembered how she had arrived late, her horse lathered, and recalled her words at the horse's grave. She had wanted to find a way to say goodbye, a gesture for the Kazakhs, and her uncle the horsespeaker. She was the one who had freed the herd.
"Jakli!" Shan called as painful understanding flooded over him. He stood but she was already seen by two knobs, who were running to intercept her. The knobs had her family. They had come for Jakli, who had openly defied them at Yoktian. If Jakli didn't go they would take her family to prison.
The soldiers grabbed her arms and roughly pulled her toward Bao.
"Jakli!" someone else called out. Wangtu emerged from the crowd and ran toward her. A knob slammed the butt of his gun into Wangtu's belly and the Kazakh crumpled onto the ground, groaning in pain.
Word seemed to spread through the encampment like a surge of electricity. Men, women, and children, some on horseback, converged around the knob trucks. A hundred Kazakhs, then two hundred, surrounded the knobs, who stood, weapons ready, as Bao strutted about her, ignoring the angry shouts. The knobs let go of her family and Malik charged a knob, jumping on his back, beating him with his fists. The soldier flung him to the ground and held him under his boot until two of the clansmen dragged him away. As they did so Akzu pointed. The white horse was on top of the ridge now, standing proudly on a ledge overlooking the camp. It seemed to be watching.
"Niya!" someone shouted. "Niya Gazuli!"
The knobs put chains on Jakli, at her wrists and her feet. Wangtu was on his knees, gasping, crying, holding his belly. The soldiers began to pull her by the chains, but she resisted and called out to them defiantly. The soldiers dropped the chains, and she picked them up herself, walking on her own, her head held high, to the truck that awaited her.
The murmur of Niya's name swept through the clans, which began to form a long line along the road out of camp. More horsemen began to appear on the slopes, where they had been hiding. At the north end of the valley, below the lake, Shan glimpsed a solitary man watching, astride a silver camel.
"Niya! Niya! Niya Gazuli!" the crowd chanted, until all the Kazakhs picked up the cry and it reverberated down the valley.
Bao glared at the crowd, then cast a poisonous look at the horse above them. The truck with Jakli began to move. Then Bao climbed into the black vehicle and it followed.
"Niya! Niya!" The riders on the horses stood in their stirrups and raised their fists high, the defiant shouts echoing through the mountains as the truck moved down the road.
Then, a hundred yards from the crowd, Bao's truck stopped. The major climbed out quickly and stood at the hood of the truck, bracing himself with a long range rifle, aiming up the ridge. He fired twice and the chant stopped. A woman screamed in pain and the majestic white horse stumbled. Then it dropped and its body fell off the ledge, rolling down the slope.
Major Bao called out and Jakli's head was shoved from the back of the other truck, her hair roughly held by a knob, forcing her to see the dead horse as its body slid into the rocks below. Then Bao strutted back to his truck and the knobs drove away. Shan found himself on his knees, clenching his belly, as the wise, joyful Jakli disappeared into the gulag.