The clearing was silent. Every eye fixed on the headman as he solemnly looked into the faces of each of the orphan boys. "It's going to take a lot of new saddles," Akzu declared at last, and his wife rushed forward to embrace him.

After the meal, when the sun had been down two hours and most of the camp was asleep, Shan went back to the ledge. Deacon was there alone, under the full moon. Not quite alone, for he had his singers with him, arrayed in a semicircle in front of him. Shan did not join him at first but returned to the cabin to speak to the Yakde Lama, then ventured back to the ledge.

The American did not speak when Shan arrived but moved to the side to make room for him.

The moon was so brilliant they could see the glow of the desert miles away. One or two of the crickets sang, uncertain chirps, as if frightened perhaps.

"There was a compass there," Shan said quietly. "A black metal compass." He reached into his pocket and handed it to the American.

Deacon took so long to reply that Shan thought he had not heard. "I gave it to him. He was brave and independent, but that day he first left with the zheli he asked where we would be. I told him and said we would always be there waiting for him." Deacon's voice cracked and he stopped speaking for several long moments. "I said, Take my compass, and I showed him on a map where Sand Mountain would be. So if he ever wanted to talk to us or shout out goodnight he would know which direction to face."

Shan closed his eyes and fought away the image of the terrified boy as Ko came for him with the bat and knife, pulling out the compass to know which way his parents were, which way to go to find safety.

They were silent again, for a long time. More crickets sounded. "Ironlegs won't talk," Deacon said absently. "Never has, since that night I caught him." The moon rose higher and brighter. From somewhere an owl called. And then, behind them, a twig broke. The Yakde Lama stepped into the moonlight, looking down, wearing a sad, shy smile.

"There is someone I want you to meet," Shan said.

"I know Khitai," Deacon replied in a hoarse voice.

The boy took a step closer.

"There is someone I want you to meet," Shan said again.

The boy took another step forward.

"You said you were going to buy a bicycle for him," Shan said.

The American made a choking sound and then a sob wracked his broad shoulders. He put his arms out, the boy ran forward into them, and the American finally cried. In long groaning sobs he cried, and the boy clung to him and cried too. Until finally they began to quiet. Because all the crickets were singing.

He was awakened by a light touch on his shoulder, just as the sun was rising. "Is it true," Gendun asked in almost a whisper, "that the Yakde still wishes to go to America?" Shan only nodded, and Gendun rose and moved back to a small group sitting by the trees. Shan threw his blanket off and rose. The camp was still quiet except for two Maos at the fire who had been on guard all night. He walked to the trees. Gendun, Lokesh and an old, nearly bald Tibetan were listening to Jowa as he drew with his finger in the earth, a map of how to go from Senge Drak to the Raven's Nest. Shan looked back to the stranger and froze.

It was the waterkeeper. The old lama seemed to sense Shan's stare. He looked up and nodded warmly, then patted the earth between himself and Lokesh, inviting Shan to sit. As Shan returned the waterkeeper's smile he remembered the lama's last words to him. There has to be a crack or nothing can get in, he had said at the clinic. In the end, that was all Shan had been able to do, to help open the cracks, first in Kaju, and then in the hard brittle shell around Prosecutor Xu.

Lokesh leaned toward Shan and explained that Gendun was going to take the waterkeeper to Senge Drak and then the waterkeeper would take Gendun to the hidden gompa.

Gendun was beaming at Shan when he looked up. "There's an old teacher at the Nest," he said with a tone of great satisfaction, "who knew my father."

"But, Rinpoche," Jowa said. "Who will go with the boy? The Yakde needs a teacher until he is ready to return."

Gendun put his hand on the waterkeeper's shoulder. "The gompa has been without their abbot for too many years."

"What is needed," the abbot of the Raven's Nest said in his raspy voice, "is someone younger and stronger. Someone trained as a monk but also trained in the ways of the world."

"The Americans spoke to me before they slept," Jowa said. "First they are going with the Eluosi, to help him buy land and build his cabin by the ocean. The boy will stay there. They can do their work there, they say, for a year or two at least. It would be a quiet place a Mao could come visit, when there are more samples to bring from the desert."

"It could be difficult to navigate from a gompa to the world, but perhaps more so to go from the world back to the life of a gompa," Gendun observed enigmatically.

Lokesh made a chuckling sound and Jowa cast him a puzzled glance.

"In the mornings," the waterkeeper said with a contented sigh, "the boy is always distracted until he eats. Just a bowl of porridge, then he studies his sutras." Jowa looked away, around the clearing, as if he expected to see another monk arriving at any moment. "But if he does well, a reward is following butterflies. One time we followed a butterfly for three hours. Someone young, with stronger legs than mine, could do it for six."

Lokesh chuckled again. Jowa looked to him, then to Shan.

The waterkeeper touched Jowa's leg. "He hates to wash his socks," the old abbot said. "Make him wash his socks."

Jowa froze and stared at the waterkeeper's fingers. "Rinpoche," he said in a whisper. "I am not-" He could not finish the sentence, but just stared at the lama's hand.

The waterkeeper leaned forward and put both hands on top of Jowa's, resting on the purba's legs. "I hear this Alaska is a wet place." He shook their hands, one on top of the other, hard, as if to make sure Jowa understood. "Dry him off sometimes."

The old lama and Jowa gazed at each other for a long time. "When he is ready," the abbot of the Raven's Nest said at last, "you must bring him back to us. There will be much work for him, in the new Tibet." He squeezed Jowa's hands again. "We will watch the oracle lake for signs."

As Jowa looked at Shan, the Tibetan's mouth slowly turned up in a grin, and Shan remembered a night that seemed long ago, standing under the moon in the Kunlun, when Jowa had spoken in despair about how the lamas would eventually disappear, about how there was no point in continuing without the lamas, and how he could never become a lama because of what the Chinese had made him. But there would be a new generation of lamas, a different breed, but lamas nonetheless, and Jowa would help nurture them.

The Yakde had risen and was standing at the fire. Fat Mao nodded at Gendun.

"We are going now," Gendun announced to Shan, and the Tibetans rose. The waterkeeper and the Yakde embraced, and the waterkeeper gestured for Jowa and embraced the Yakde's new teacher as well.

The lamas followed Fat Mao up the trail, and Shan walked the first hundred feet with them. There were no words to say. Fat Mao stepped to Shan's side, and with an awkward, sober expression, dropped something into his hand, then darted away. Gendun, then the waterkeeper, stood in front of Shan, each grinning brightly, and each in turn placed his palm over Shan's heart. Shan nodded gratefully and watched until they were out of sight, then looked into his hand. Fat Mao had given him a small, brightly colored stone, newly washed with water.