to put a bullet in his head with a pistol held between his eyes.”
A tear rolled down Ama Apte’s cheek. “How can you know that?”
“There are no hoofprints anywhere near here, except for a few from sheep. He has several broken bones, from the fall. If you look closely at his head you will see burned hairs around the wound, from the discharge of a large pistol pressed to his skull. There are prints from a heavy boot, a military boot, from someone walking close along the cliff face.”
“He hated soldiers. He would have avoided soldiers,” Ama Apte said in a distant voice. “But why? Why go to the trouble? What did they have to fear from him?”
“I don’t know. I left him near the road the day of the assassination, carrying Tenzin, a few hours before he was shot.” Shan turned and surveyed the little bowl-shaped valley defined by the ridge that curled into the massive Tumkot mountain. The trail that went upward led to a glacier that was said to be impassable. But on the other side of the mountain would be the road to the base camp. “He died because he was a witness to something.” Shan looked back at the seated woman, realizing only afterwards that he had given voice to the unlikely thought that had entered his head.
But the old diviner only nodded, as if the explanation made perfect sense to her. “Are you strong enough to find the rest of it for him, so he can move on?” she asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“The truth. The truth about my uncle will be a heavy, dangerous thing. It will not want to be found.”
Shan nodded. The truth about the dead mule would also be the truth that would protect Tan, and therefore could be the truth that kept Shan’s son alive. Someone, on the same day, had assassinated the minister, a Western woman, and a mule.
“But I was casting the bones last night,” she declared in an apologetic tone. “And again just here. They said the same thing each time. A very strong portent. On the path of death lies more death.”
Shan closed his eyes a moment then gazed at the snowcapped peaks beyond the little valley. He extended his hand to the woman to help her up as he spoke again. “We’re going to need more wood.”
Chapter Five
ONWARD AND ONWARD! It was the shining light of the Party and Chairman Mao Tse-tung who gave us boundless strength and wisdom! read the dusty banner on the wall behind Tsipon’s desk. The quote was famous in the region, the fervent declaration from the journal of the first Chinese team to have ascended Chomolungma, emblazoned on tourist brochures and regional histories. On the adjoining wall was a new banner, almost as big, announcing the opening of the Snow Leopard Guesthouse, the most luxurious accommodation in the Himalayan region.
It was an hour after dawn, far too early for Tsipon to have stirred from his comfortable house on the slope above town, but with enough light cast through the windows for Shan to see without switching on a telltale bulb. He headed straight for the table under the window, where Tsipon’s secretary maintained an informal archive dedicated to local mountaineering: photos of early climbers, year-by-year statistics on expeditions, annals of the Chinese Mountain Institute, and copies of the regional newspaper.
With the battering of his mind and body, his memories of the murder scene had become so blurred he could almost believe everyone’s denial that any Westerner had been there. But he believed his dreams. Her face had haunted his sleep ever since that terrible day. In a nightmare the previous night, Shan had been lying broken and bleeding on a cell floor when the blood-soaked blond woman had appeared and carried Shan away from his cell, telling him in a comforting tone that the mountain was calling him for his final climb, that he shouldn’t think of it as death, just a cold, windy passage to a loftier existence.
He had decided that her face, though not familiar to him, was not altogether new. He had a sense he had
A tear rolled down Ama Apte’s cheek. “How can you know that?”
“There are no hoofprints anywhere near here, except for a few from sheep. He has several broken bones, from the fall. If you look closely at his head you will see burned hairs around the wound, from the discharge of a large pistol pressed to his skull. There are prints from a heavy boot, a military boot, from someone walking close along the cliff face.”
“He hated soldiers. He would have avoided soldiers,” Ama Apte said in a distant voice. “But why? Why go to the trouble? What did they have to fear from him?”
“I don’t know. I left him near the road the day of the assassination, carrying Tenzin, a few hours before he was shot.” Shan turned and surveyed the little bowl-shaped valley defined by the ridge that curled into the massive Tumkot mountain. The trail that went upward led to a glacier that was said to be impassable. But on the other side of the mountain would be the road to the base camp. “He died because he was a witness to something.” Shan looked back at the seated woman, realizing only afterwards that he had given voice to the unlikely thought that had entered his head.
But the old diviner only nodded, as if the explanation made perfect sense to her. “Are you strong enough to find the rest of it for him, so he can move on?” she asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“The truth. The truth about my uncle will be a heavy, dangerous thing. It will not want to be found.”
Shan nodded. The truth about the dead mule would also be the truth that would protect Tan, and therefore could be the truth that kept Shan’s son alive. Someone, on the same day, had assassinated the minister, a Western woman, and a mule.
“But I was casting the bones last night,” she declared in an apologetic tone. “And again just here. They said the same thing each time. A very strong portent. On the path of death lies more death.”
Shan closed his eyes a moment then gazed at the snowcapped peaks beyond the little valley. He extended his hand to the woman to help her up as he spoke again. “We’re going to need more wood.”
Chapter Five
ONWARD AND ONWARD! It was the shining light of the Party and Chairman Mao Tse-tung who gave us boundless strength and wisdom! read the dusty banner on the wall behind Tsipon’s desk. The quote was famous in the region, the fervent declaration from the journal of the first Chinese team to have ascended Chomolungma, emblazoned on tourist brochures and regional histories. On the adjoining wall was a new banner, almost as big, announcing the opening of the Snow Leopard Guesthouse, the most luxurious accommodation in the Himalayan region.
It was an hour after dawn, far too early for Tsipon to have stirred from his comfortable house on the slope above town, but with enough light cast through the windows for Shan to see without switching on a telltale bulb. He headed straight for the table under the window, where Tsipon’s secretary maintained an informal archive dedicated to local mountaineering: photos of early climbers, year-by-year statistics on expeditions, annals of the Chinese Mountain Institute, and copies of the regional newspaper.
With the battering of his mind and body, his memories of the murder scene had become so blurred he could almost believe everyone’s denial that any Westerner had been there. But he believed his dreams. Her face had haunted his sleep ever since that terrible day. In a nightmare the previous night, Shan had been lying broken and bleeding on a cell floor when the blood-soaked blond woman had appeared and carried Shan away from his cell, telling him in a comforting tone that the mountain was calling him for his final climb, that he shouldn’t think of it as death, just a cold, windy passage to a loftier existence.
He had decided that her face, though not familiar to him, was not altogether new. He had a sense he had
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