Read Online Bone Mountain by Eliot Pattison - Free Book Online Page B

Shan stepped outside he realized the hairs on his arms were standing on end. He stood perfectly still a moment, looking at his hands, which trembled. Slowly, stumbling over his own boots, he stepped toward his horse, ignoring the Golok’s impatient gestures for him to mount. As he lifted the reins he looked back at Somo, who stood at the door to the lhakang now. “You never did tell us what it was, the message you were carrying for Drakte,” he said.
    The woman frowned. “It was a purba message.”
    “It was about the eye,” Shan said, “if you were coming here.”
    “The lamas. The government is sweeping the mountains for unregistered lamas.”
    “No. We knew that already.”
    She glanced back toward the death hut, then hesitantly stepped to Shan’s side. “All right. We didn’t think Drakte knew. He had to be warned before he started for that valley with you. They’re moving north, a headquarters unit from Lhasa,” Somo declared cryptically. “That was my message. A small unit.” She bit her lower lip. “Platoon strength, that’s what I was to say to Drakte.”
    “I’m sorry,” Shan said, his throat suddenly bone dry. “I don’t understand.”
    “I guess it means you must move quickly now. This Golok must know secret trails.” She saw the confusion in Shan’s eyes and glanced at Nyma. “No one told you about the struggle over that old stone eye? Someone else thinks they own it. It was taken from them in Lhasa. They want it back.”
    “Who?” Shan asked with a sinking heart.
    Somo bit her lip again, then answered slowly, in a chill tone. “The 54th Mountain Combat Brigade of the People’s Liberation Army.”

C HAPTER T HREE
    They rode not north, as Shan expected, but west, climbing the high ridge on the far side of the long valley, then descending toward the second snowcapped range of mountains beyond it. As he rode over the crest and out of the valley that led to the hermitage, Shan reined in his horse and watched Dremu trot off to scout ahead. He looked back to the ridge where the dropka had stacked rocks to protect the lamas, toward the hermitage. Gendun had been sheltered inside his own secret hermitage above Lhadrung until Shan had discovered it. Gendun might never have been exposed to the outside world except for Shan.
    “When we arrived there, before the mandala began, I talked with Shopo,” said Lokesh, at his side. The old man had an uncanny ability to read Shan’s emotions. “They didn’t know Gendun. He just arrived and sat in the lhakang for hours contemplating the stone eye. Then he drank tea with Shopo and said he knew that eye now, and he knew who would return the eye, as certain as if he had read it in a book where the future is written. Shopo said he hadn’t been sure himself, but Gendun would not be swayed. He knew it had to be you. He said not only did you have a pure heart, you had a big heart, so big it was a burden to you.”
    So big its pain almost overpowered Shan. If the killer was stalking the eye he had no choice but to take it away from the lamas. And going with it was the only way he would find the killer. He could only protect the lamas by leaving the lamas.
    Shan cast an awkward glance at Lokesh, who grinned back, leaned over like a mischievous uncle and pulled Shan’s hat brim down over his eyes, then trotted away toward a clump of flowers. It was how Lokesh always traveled, not in a straight line but from flower to flower, or rock to rock, stopping to examine the shapes of nature in whatever form might capture his curiosity. He turned toward the Golok, who was moving so quickly away he seemed to be fleeing them. He did not trust the man. But Drakte had, or at least Dremu wanted Shan and the others to believe he had. Dremu knew about the eye but none of the others left alive knew about him. Drakte had apparently known him, but from where? The only logical answer seemed to be from prison. Shan checked the binding on his saddlebag, then reluctantly urged his