"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."