The Trail to Buddha's Mirror (39 page)

The village had the tattered, dirty look of rural poverty. Acrid smoke poured from holes in the roofs of shacks. A scraggly garden plot fought for survival in a sea of wild grass. A few skinny sheep and goats bleated indignant protests at the arrival of the strange motorcar.

“This is as far as he can go,” Wu said as the driver pulled to a stop.

Neal could sense rather than see the eyes of the villagers observing the government car. No one came out to greet them. He pointed to a trodden dirt path that scarred the grass.

“Is that the only way up the mountain?”

Wu spoke to the driver.

“It’s the only way up,” Wu translated. “You go down on the other side.”

“What about airstrips? Helicopter pads?”

Another exchange.

“The only thing you can fly to that mountain is a dragon.”

“Good.”

Neal started to gather his bag together.

“The police will be right behind you, you know. You cannot escape.”

“I don’t need to escape. I just need a little time. If they have to walk, they won’t get there ahead of me.”

“I will come with you.”

Neal smiled at him. “I’m honored. But no thanks.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because your father went to jail for speaking English.”

“Do not joke.”

“I’m not.”

Neal got out of the car. The driver looked straight ahead, still smiling calmly. Wu looked as if he were about to cry.

“Good-bye, Xiao Wu,” Neal said.

“Good-bye, Neal Carey.”

“We will see each other again.”

“Fuck yes.”

“Fuck yes.”

Neal took the pistol from his jacket, pointed, and pulled the trigger. The right front tire hissed its death throes before expiring. Neal was pleased—he had never shot anything before. He executed the left rear tire in the same fashion.

“Sorry,” he said to the driver. “It’ll give me a little more of a start.”

The driver shrugged. He seemed to understand.

Neal walked backward along the trail and kept his eye on the car, just in case Xiao Wu and the driver were thinking about trying to catch him and wrestle him to the ground. The path took a dip out of sight about fifty yards away, so he turned around and headed for the mountain.

He felt exhilarated, almost carefree. It was strange, because he had nothing but cares. He had to catch Li Lan before Simms and Peng did—warn her that her organization had a mole and that she and Pendleton would never be safe. And he was now the proverbial man without a country—not America, not China. If he survived the next few days, which was a poor bet at best, he had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.

But he felt the energizing simplicity of desperation. It felt great to be done with the myriad complexities of intrigue, with the subtle maneuvers, with the twisted emotions, with the damn
thinking.
The whole mess had come to a race up a mountain, and the fresh air and open spaces sang to him as he settled into a pace.

He realized he hadn’t been alone in three months, not for a single hour, and he certainly hadn’t been free. Now he looked up at the magnificent panorama of mountains and valleys, and he felt … clean. He hadn’t felt clean in a long, long time.

The climb began abruptly as the grassy plateau gave way to a narrow saddle and the dirt trail yielded to a more formal stone path. The saddle emptied into a thick grove of bamboo, beyond which was a stone bridge over a fast, narrow stream. On the other side of the bridge, Neal passed under a large open gate to the bottom of a steep knoll. The stone steps flanked the edge of a wall, behind which was an enormous temple. Neal paused at the first landing and felt the pins and needles in his legs. The trail ahead of him went straight uphill for as far as he could see. It was going to be a long day.

And he had to find an elephant.

No, not an elephant.
The
elephant. On a Chinese mountain.

Speaking of elephants on Chinese mountains, he thought … I’m probably pretty conspicuous now that daylight’s here.

He walked up the stairs until he came to an open arched gate, then stepped inside. He was standing at the edge of a large courtyard where a small battalion of monks were doing t‘ai chi. Other monks, who looked like young novices, scurried about with wooden buckets of water and bundles of firewood. Neal surmised that they were getting ready for the old after—t‘ai chi breakfast. Neal sidled along the edge of the courtyard beneath a tiled portico, then slipped through the first open door.

The sanctuary was full of statues, sticks of incense smoldering in their stone hands. Neal hit the staircase just inside the door and found himself in a hallway in front of a row of rooms. In the trusting, cloistered atmosphere of the monastery, the rooms were unlocked.

So much for trust, Neal thought, as he went inside the first room. A heavy shirt and a pair of peasant trousers hung on a wooden peg. Working clothes, Neal thought, as he held the shirt up against his chest. It was much too large, so he tried the next room. Still too large.

He hit the jackpot at the end of the hallway, where a larger room had eight
kangs
and eight sets of work clothes. Must be the novices’ dorm, he thought. He found a set of clothes that fit loosely, then stripped off his own Western clothes and changed into the Chinese workaday outfit. He kept his tennis shoes, though, figuring that a change of footwear didn’t make sense for a long climb up a mountain. Besides, if anyone got close enough to notice his shoes, they would also notice his round eyes.

A few more minutes of scavenging got him a wide straw hat, which he slanted down over his forehead.

There was still the problem of his modern Western bag. He gave a resigned sigh, then removed his copy of
Random
and Li Lan’s brochure from the bag and put them in the shirt’s wide hip pocket. He took out his toothbrush, toothpaste, and razor and put them in the other pocket, and shoved Simms’s pistol into the back of his pants at the waist. Then he rolled the bag up tightly and put it under his arm until he could find a safe place to dump it.

He paused at the top of the stairs and listened. The t‘ai chi was still going on, and he could hear the clatter of kettles and plates from the kitchen. He hustled down the stairs and went to find a back exit, then passed through the row of statues and under another arch into a broad courtyard.

To his left, a small pagoda supported a bronze bell about nine feet high and eight feet around. A monk sat by the ladder leading up to the bell, but he didn’t seem to notice Neal. To Neal’s right, a twenty-foot tower rose over the monastery walls. It had fourteen levels, with large characters inscribed on each level. Neal walked through the courtyard and up some steps into a large temple.

The usual saints were there, and a large Buddha, but the central figure was a sixteen-foot-tall bronze statue of a man sitting astride an elephant.

Okay, Neal thought, now we’ll see if Li Lan’s word is any good after all.

“Did you steal those clothes?” he heard her ask.

“Yup.”

She came out from behind one of the statues. She was wearing cotton peasant pants and an old Mao jacket and cap. Her eyes brimmed with tears and she threw her arms around him.

“You are alive,” she whispered.

He hugged her back. It felt great.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “They’ll be coming after us. There’s a traitor in your old man’s operation.”

He felt her body tense.

“You led them here?” she asked.

“They know anyway. Listen to me. One of your father’s people, Peng, is a mole, a traitor. He’s working for the other side. You didn’t tell me your father was working against the government.”

“He is working to become the government.”

“Is he part of this ‘Sichuan Mafia’?”

“I have heard it called that, yes.”

“Pendleton’s on the mountain?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“Is there any other way off the mountain? An escape route?”

“It is very dangerous. Over the top and down the western side. Then by foot road to Tibet. It is very long and very dangerous. But the Yi people hate the government. They would lead us. And hide us.”

“Okay,” he said, “here’s the deal. You take me to Pendleton. If he wants to stay, fine. He stays and takes his chances. If he wants to leave, your people give us a guide and supplies and we hit the road to Tibet. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Well, half a deal anyway. Peng wasn’t sitting at the table.

“Tell me the truth,” he said. “If Pendleton decides to stay, is he committing suicide? Is there a chance you can make it while Peng knows what’s going on?”

She nodded. “Father is very powerful. Peng will be afraid to move against him without proof. He will need possession of Robert and me, and to connect us with Father.”

“Can he do that?”

She nodded again. “Father is on mountain.”

“Jesus Christ! Why?”

She smiled wanly. “To see Robert, to see me, to see my sister. It was to have been a happy family reunion.”

Maybe it still can be, Neal thought. If two can walk to Tibet, so can five. But none of that can happen unless we can get to the top before we get caught.

“Let’s get going,” he said.

The path led out the back of the monastery on a narrow raised road flanked by fields where a few farmers were at work. Neal and Li came to a bridge over a rapid creek, and Neal tossed his bag into the water.

The path was level and the walking easy as the path ran beside another creek, past ancient, gigantic banyan trees. The countryside was still fairly open, and they could see the rocky crags of Emei’s lower slopes. They came to a village of about a hundred pleasant, thatch-roofed wooden houses amid a grove of tall bamboo. Neal sat at the edge of the path as Lan stopped at one house and came out a minute later with two
mantou
and two bamboo cups of tea. They sat under the bamboo and ate quickly, then started back up the path, which went across another bridge and then up a steep incline through a thick forest of fir trees.

It emerged into open country between the creek and a high, rocky knoll on which was perched a large monastery. It was midmorning, the sun was out, and Neal felt sweat beginning to break out on his back and then trickle down his spine. Li Lan was setting a healthy pace, and the increasing pitch didn’t seem to bother her. Neal had thought that walking up the stone steps would be easier than struggling up an incline, but the backs of his thighs were already starting to ache and the soles of his feet felt the pounding.

Another half hour of climbing took them under a wooden arch where four wooden poles supported three tiled, curved roofs, and then up along the edge of a knoll to an ornate monastery. A broad terrace looked out over a deep, forested chasm.

“We will rest here,” Li said.

“If you really want to,” Neal said between gasps.

“This is an historic place,” Li said, “where Emperor Kang-hsi visited and gave the abbot a jade seal.”

“When was this?” Neal asked, eager to keep up the conversation—and the breather.

“Qing Dynasty. In your time, the late sixteenth century.”

Around the time of Shakespeare, Neal thought.

“Emperor Kang-hsi gave this place the name ‘Dragon’s Abode.’”

“Did dragons live here?”

Li laughed. “No, but wolves and tigers did, down the hill, until the abbot built a watchtower with fire to scare them off. The fire at night looked like a dragon’s mouth. So the name is a funny joke.”

“Pretty droll emperor.”

“The resting time is finished.”

Which will teach me to mouth off about the emperor.

To Neal’s surprise and relief, the path went downhill in a switchback around another steep knoll. It crossed and recrossed the curving river on stone bridges, finally working its way down to a waterfall about twelve feet high.

They crossed the river just downstream of the waterfall, and Neal enjoyed the spray of the cool water as he passed by. He looked over the bridge into a pool, where smooth stones sparkled like jade. Then he followed Li around what looked to be an enormous monastery. Li went in a side gate and emerged a few minutes later with two wooden bowls of rice and some pickled vegetables. Neal shoveled the food down gratefully while sitting on the path, and then they started off again.

The path led to a ferociously steep, zigzag incline surrounded by a thick bamboo forest. Each switchback led to just another switchback, higher than the last, on the very edge of the mountain. The view was stunning, overlooking the valleys and plains to the east and the path they had just ascended, but after three or four switchbacks, Neal stopped looking. He just put his head down and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. His shirt was soaked with sweat, and his eyes stung from perspiration and fatigue.

He almost missed the tree with the “wanted” poster on it.

‘“What’s this?” he asked Li.

A sketch of a monkey’s face had been nailed to a tree.

“Bandit monkey,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Bandit monkey?”

“Yes, it offers a reward for this monkey … named One Fang … because it has been robbing pilgrims. There are many bandit monkeys on Emei. Only the very worst get a poster.”

She started back up the hill.

Bandit monkeys, Neal thought. He pictured Central Park with gangs of simian muggers running around, dropping on people out of trees … taking their peanuts … then gave up the fantasy. Central Park was bad enough.

“What do the monkeys steal?” he called ahead.

“You will see!”

Say what?

“What do you mean?!”

“Monkeys any time now!”

Monkeys any time now. Neal stopped for a second to break a dead branch of bamboo and strip it down into a walking stick. Then he remembered that he had a gun and felt a little foolish. I wonder if the monkeys understand what a gun is? he wondered.

They didn’t.

It was three switchbacks later when about half a dozen monkeys came scrambling down through the bamboo and blocked the path in front of them. They were about the size of cocker spaniels and had a good sense of terrain, because they plopped themselves just where the path took a wicked outside curve over a deep canyon. Two of the monkeys stayed in the bamboo on the uphill side to block that escape. The monkeys looked for all the world like a hairy street gang extorting passersby on their turf. The head monkey wasn’t One Fang, because he had two very large, healthy incisors that he displayed in a a growl of anger and arrogance.