Shan tapped his heart. “The god inside me.” The child’s eyes rose in alarm, and she leaned forward and stared at his chest as if for a glimpse of the deity. “We all have one,” Shan said, “but many people refuse to recognize him.”

Kami lifted the collar of her shirt and looked down inside it, then back up at the stone Buddha. “Him? You have one of those old things inside you?”

“Her. We can call yours a goddess.”

He instantly regretted his words, certain they had frightened the girl.

But Kami seemed more curious than fearful. She put a tentative hand over her heart. “Why would a goddess bother with me?”

“Because you are alive.”

“But what does she do?”

“Just witnesses.” Shan saw her confusion. “She just watches for now. When you get older she may help you.”

Kami was quiet for several breaths, then a bird landed on the Buddha’s head, and she laughed.

“Your mother said you saw camels when you came down to visit us.”

Kami laughed again. “Like great lumpy horses! I tried to ride one!”

Shan stood and extended a hand, gesturing to a bench. “Let’s go sit and you can tell me all about it.”

He listened to Kami’s excited tales about travel encounters with camels, dogs, soldiers, trucks, and yaks. After a few minutes she stood on the bench and cast a longing eye at one of the trees she liked to climb, but she stayed on the bench, except for a short break spent skipping in a circle in front of him as she described how their car had been trapped by “millions” of sheep one day.

At last Meng and Amah Jiejie appeared and Kami ran to them. Colonel Tan and his commando sergeant met Shan as Choden drove the truck to the front of the station.

“I may be out of touch,” Shan said. “I have to go back up the mountain above the Five Claws.” They had swooped low over the mountain when flying out, but Shan could not be sure Jaya and the others had understood the warning.

“No,” Tan said in a tight voice. “You have to come with us, Shan. I’m sorry.”

“But you heard Jiao. The Tibetans up there may—”

“No,” Tan interrupted. “The sergeant has something to tell you.”

The sergeant grimaced, then fixed Shan with a somber expression. “I told you, I know some of the men on that cleanup crew, the prison guards on detached duty for Deputy Director Jiao. We got to talking. One of the guards said he heard you called Inspector Shan and asked if you were the one with the son in the 404th.”

“I’m hoping we can get him parole in a couple years,” Shan said uncertainly.