to take a tunnel to get to Lhasa’s neighboring valley. Golden willows and cottonwoods bordered gravelly rivers. Lines with flapping prayer flags were stitched from tree to tree like cloth graffiti, telegraphing prayers to the eternal. Buddhas peered down from niches in cliffs. Painted ladders symbolized ascension through reincarnation toward the final grace of nirvana.
Tibet was a jumble of time. There were more oxen than tractors in the barley fields. The stone houses with small openings looked like fortresses compared to the glass expansiveness of American homes, and they were enclosed by adobe walls instead of white picket fences. Yet their geometry was more proportional and pleasing than a McMansion, with trapezoidal windows, walls alternately whitewashed or the color of the earth, and prayer flags fluttering from the four corners. There were bands of black and ocher at the eaves of the roofs, the tops flat because it so rarely rained.
The sun burned with an intensity never felt in sea-level Seattle. Everything was crisp, the clarity defeating attempts at perspective because there wasn’t enough haze to judge distance. Shadows were intensely black; rock glittered. Even the facial bones of the Tibetans seemed sharp like their mountains, their skin the color of the earth. If you wanted to contemplate the workings of the universe, this was the place.
Rominy had expected Lhasa to be backwardly quaint, but the city was a burgeoning, car-crowded metropolis of more than 400,000 people in which native Tibetans were a minority. Han Chinese had flooded in to dominate Tibet’s capital. The Potala Palace was as awesome as Jake had promised, an otherworldly edifice of more than 900 rooms, but opposite were the huge concrete parade grounds beloved of totalitarian states, complete with a musical electronic billboard. Pedicabs jockeyed with honking taxis. There were billboards for Budweiser beer, shops for Italian clothing, and stores full of glistening motorcycles and Mercedes.
“The Chinese Communists invaded Tibet in 1950,” Jake recounted, “and by 1959 the Dalai Lama-the one who was just a child when Benjamin Hood was here-had to flee into exile. The same guy has since become a global celebrity, but we can get into the Potala as tourists while he can’t as regent. The wars and upheaval are said to have killed more than a million Tibetans. Meanwhile Chinese have moved in, so you have this country that’s half traditional and half modern, everything put on overdrive by go-go capitalism ruled by Communist dictatorship. Even now, if border guards find a book with mention of the Dalai Lama, they confiscate it.”
“You seem quite the expert.”
“Ever since I got on the Ben Hood story, I’ve been reading about Tibet.”
Some of old Lhasa remained. East of the Potala, around the golden-roofed Jokhang temple, the Barkhor neighborhood of historic buildings and markets sustained sights and sounds Kurt Raeder might have encountered in 1938. Here the streets were narrow and winding, jammed with booths with cheap clothing and globalized souvenirs. The smell was charcoal braziers and cypress incense. A single stall of scarves-a brilliant bank of pinks, reds, purples, and yellows-was a detonating rainbow.
“They like color, don’t they?” said Rominy.
“Wait until you see their temples.”
In the rectangular plaza in front of the Jokhang, men and boys flew kites that looped and dueled in the blue breeze, trying to slice each other’s lines. On the foothills to the north, the Sera, Nechung, and Drepung monasteries clung to the hillsides like old-man eyebrows, limpets of medieval glory overlooking the modernist bustle below. And around the mount of the Potala, a constant circuit of pilgrims shuffled in a clockwise direction called a kora, turning prayer drums and working their rosary mala s.
Jake and Rominy checked into the Shangri-la Hotel.
“If we’re traveling incognito, isn’t the name of this place a little obvious?” she whispered.
“Nobody knows we’re here,” said Jake. “Besides, we won’t stay long. But you can’t just run around China willy-nilly, you need a guide with permits. I e-mailed ahead to a booking service and they found one last-minute, which probably means no one else wanted him.”
“Great.”
“It won’t matter. We just need his paperwork.” He turned back to the desk clerk. “A room in the back, please. And yes, double, not twin.”
Rominy didn’t contradict him.
In their room, Jake hugged her. “Take some aspirin and a nap to help acclimate to the altitude. I’m going to pick up a few things in the market and will see you for dinner.”
T heir guide was an American expat in khaki cargo pants, REI hiking boots, and a torn Led Zeppelin sweatshirt, a genial-looking nobody of the kind Rominy had spent half her life meeting at Seattle coffeehouses and passing over as amiably directionless. They all seemed to have the goals of a fourteen-year-old: play hard. This one had made a living of it, guiding in Tibet, but if what Jake said was true, they’d drawn the bottom of the barrel. He was traveler-shaggy, with a mop of dark hair that hadn’t seen a shower for days, a weedy beard, and just the beginning of beer pudge. He wore peace beads at neck and wrist and had a sweat-stained camouflage Booney hat from L.L. Bean. He wandered into the restaurant tapping an iPhone, absentmindedly bumping the Tibetan waitress.
“Sam Mackenzie,” he said, sliding into a chair at their table and offering a large, horny hand. “Hear you’re looking for an expert.”
Jake gave Rominy a sideways glance. “Bob and Lilith Anderson,” he replied. “We need someone to get us to the Kunlun Mountains. None of the Tibetan guides seem anxious to go there, so the travel agency suggested you.”
“The Kunlun? Heck, you want to see mountains, I can show you several from the sidewalk. What do you want to go to the Kunlun for? They’re kinda off the beaten path, my friends.”
“And I could show you two entire mountain ranges from Seattle, Mr. Mackenzie, but we flew halfway around the world anyway,” Rominy said. “We want to see mountains not everybody’s seen before.”
Mackenzie considered her. Cute. “Fair enough. Better than ‘Because it’s there.’ Yeah, I might get you to the Kunlun. I got the permits to go through the Chinese checkpoints. I got the Toyota Land Cruiser. I got the maps. It’s a trek, however. Late in the year. Your butt will have calluses from the washboard road and you’ll eat so much Top Ramen you’ll think you’re made of monosodium glutamate. It’s actually kind of a long, monotonous, rugged, wheezy, kidney-killing trip. A mountain’s a mountain but, hey, you’re right, the Kunluns are special. High, higher, and highest.” He smiled encouragement.
“You’ve been there?” Jake asked.
“Close enough.” He waved his hand. “I can get us wherever we need to go.”
“Can we fly?”
Sam laughed. “If you want to play tag with the Chinese air force. This is Tibet, not Topeka, Mr. Anderson. Nobody flies who doesn’t have the permission of the Communist government. No private planes. So you get off the main highway and the roads are tracks, and you get off the tracks and the roads are trails. AAA is one hell of a long ways away. There are no doctors, no search and rescue, no gas stations, and no bushes to pee behind. If you pardon my French, Mrs. Anderson.”
“I get the picture.”
“Yeah, the Tibetans who guide, they’re not anxious to go to the Kunlun. Takes a long time. There’s nothing there except old legends and enough ice to restock Canada. They tell ghost stories about the place. The Kunlun Mountains are two thousand miles long. Do you care which Kunluns you see?”
“Yes, we have coordinates to a specific place,” Jake said. “The western half of the range, approaching the Hindu Kush. I’m a writer, and we’re following a historical mystery.”
The guide squinted from under his hat. “I love a mystery. What is it?”
“We’d rather not say.”
“So what exactly are we looking for?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“I see.” Mackenzie considered them and then scratched his chin. “Yep, the Kunlun are a sight to behold. If you want mountains, they’re an outstanding example. But a trip like this is kinda pricey. I’m thinking a couple thousand yuan a day, or three hundred bucks.” He waited for protest and, getting none, plunged on. “And, gosh, we could easily eat up three weeks getting there and coming back, so that’s what, six thousand…”
“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars,” Jake said. “Cash.”
Sam blinked. “Really?”
“Plus money for supplies. If you can do it in less time you keep all the money. If you know a shortcut, by all
