Shan pointed to the truck, the road, and the highway visible in the distance. “That’s China,” he said, then pointed in the opposite direction toward the wild, rugged mountains above them where a line of chortens stood like defiant sentinels. “That’s Tibet.” He handed Zhu a wide-brimmed hat. “They will be watching. If you move like a soldier or carry yourself like someone from the city, they will lose themselves in the stone forests.”

Zhu unzipped his new red nylon jacket and reluctantly tossed it in the back of Shan’s car, which they were leaving under some trees a half mile below Ice Ball Alley. He choked off a protest as Shan rubbed dirt on his heavy backpack.

“And no guns,” Shan said. “It’s not our way.”

“I’m a soldier,” Zhu protested. “You said I was deploying against Public Security.”

“No guns,” Shan insisted. “And what I said was that you were to be our invisible defense against the knob patrols. They are using electronic devices.”

Zhu grinned and hefted his pack. “Good. A field exercise,” he said, then unzipped the top compartment of his pack and set his pistol under the seat of the car.

They pressed hard, with Shan setting a grueling pace. Zhu remained silent when Shan knelt at the first pilgrim shrine but followed Shan’s action in emptying his canteen and filling it from the pilgrim spring. At the next shrine he copied Shan in placing a stone on top of the old lichen-covered cairn. At the third he joined Shan in kneeling.

As they walked on Zhu whispered something that caused Shan to turn. “Chaosheng,” Zhu said more loudly. “My grandmother always wanted to take me with her on her chaosheng journeys.”

Shan hadn’t heard the Chinese word for years. It meant paying respect to the holy mountain.

“Sometimes I went with my parents to the nearest shrine mountains for a weekend, but never with my grandmother. She would travel for a week or two at a time and sleep on top of the sacred mountain when she got there.”

“On your next leave maybe you can go with her.”

Something seemed to rattle in the soldier’s throat. “She died while I was in officer’s training. I couldn’t even get back for her funeral. My father took his annual leave so he could scatter her ashes on the top of her favorite mountain.”

Shan was about to offer words of comfort when Zhu quickened his pace and pulled away. He did not speak until they reached the shrine before the final steep switchback climb up to the Talons.

“Aren’t we supposed to have incense?” Zhu asked as he laid a rock on the final cairn. “My father would light incense when he prayed.”

Shan searched his pockets, finding a single cone of incense. “I only have the one,” he said, and dropped it into Zhu’s hand.