In his mind’s eye, Shan replayed the scene of the prisoner marching to the warden and receiving his belongings. His old chuba had been tattered, its fleece lining soiled. On the back and sleeves there had been faded images, some of them complex geometric designs and others depictions of deities, too small and too faint for Shan to recognize. On his march to the gate Yankay had drawn another design. Shan bent and in the sandy soil in front of him he drew a smaller version with his finger, a circle with four equally spaced short tangent lines. “He’s a hail chaser,” Shan said.

“A hail assassin, according to Public Security,” Tan said.

“In old Tibet there were such men,” Shan explained, “usually senior monks who had moved on from their monasteries to roam the countryside and tap the power of the earth deities, the ones who control land and sky. They were paid by farmers to influence the weather. Mostly it was to chase away hail, which could destroy a year’s crop in minutes, but the best ones were said to be able to call in hail as well. Some were even said to be able to summon the deities in the earth as readily as those in the sky.”

“The earth gods who make earthquakes,” Tan suggested.

Shan looked at him in surprise. “They’re only old tales, Colonel. Folklore, really.”

“Of course they are, damn it!” Tan’s temper could instantly flare and cool just as quickly. “It doesn’t matter what I think. The man has a following. It’s like they found a loophole in the law.”

“By using gods?”

Tan’s face tightened again. “Don’t play the fool with me! It doesn’t matter if the gods aren’t real to you or me. What matters is that so many believe they are!”

“I’m not sure what we’re talking about,” Shan confessed.

Tan motioned with his cigarette toward the fading cloud of dust. “He’s on a line toward the project.”

“The project?”

“That damned hydroelectric project. The Five Claws Dam, they call it. Biggest investment the government has ever made in this region. Two more years to complete and they already have its dedication on the Chairman’s schedule. Five miles farther north and it would have been out of my county,” he spat. “They’re following a new model. Fast track, where national strategic interests are involved. Keep the approval process quiet, start construction before the public even knows about it. Which means they started without even talking with me, let alone asking my permission.” Shan glanced at Tan. Corruption was a minor sin compared to slighting the colonel’s authority.

“Started. Meaning what?” Shan asked.

“Reshaping the valley. Leveling some old ruins.”