The words pressed against Shan’s heart. Not for the first time he felt a deep loathing for what the world had done to such men. Why, he wondered, was Yankay confessing such things to him? And why was his old body so misshapen? He gazed into the shallow cave where Yankay stored his belongings and saw a dented helmet. “Tell me, Rinpoche,” he said, using the form of address reserved for learned lamas, “how many times have your bones been broken by hail?”

A sad smile rose on the old man’s face. “You do me too great an honor, Constable. Maybe in the former world I would have become such but never in this one.” He shrugged, then began touching parts of his body and counting. His left collarbone, his right collarbone, his left radius bone, his right ulna bone, the back of one hand, the wrist of the other. He stopped counting at ten. “I tend to think of these as blessings, for each time the gods decided not to kill me. ‘Here we are!’ they are saying. ‘We have decided to let you live a while longer, you old fool!’” He touched his crooked jaw. “This one was just my stupidity. Never look up into a hailstorm.”

The hail chaser quieted and added more wood to the fire. “How well do you know the dead?” he suddenly asked Shan.

A chill ran down Shan’s spine. “I’m sorry?”

Yankay motioned in the direction the nurse had taken. “Our walking healer says you are the constable of Yangkar. Surely the constable of the old gompa town must know the dead. They say the dogs there are always barking because more ghosts than humans live there.”

“I have experienced the dead far too often,” Shan admitted.

The ragged old man gave a sympathetic nod, then pushed the end of one of his bundles of juniper into the embers. “We all know the Bardo, the words for the truly dead. But how do you deal with the half-dead? How do you raise them from in-between?”

“I don’t understand,” Shan confessed.

“When the body and soul change their mind. I keep thinking if I let the gods take me, I might see enough to—”

“There you are, Constable!” a female voice interrupted. Jaya appeared out of the shadows. “The worker who came to visit wants to thank you in person for helping Yeshe in the infirmary. He wrote a prayer he wants you to keep in your pocket.” She pulled Shan to his feet with an insistent gleam in her eyes. As they left the little clearing Shan looked back at the old man, then paused until Jaya yanked his arm. Yankay was shaking his staff with one hand and waving the bundle of smoldering juniper with the other as he murmured beseechingly to the heavens. He was trying to raise the half-dead.