Free Mandarin Gate by Eliot Pattison

not all right,” Shan said. “You were attacked. I should find a doctor.” He quickly scanned the shadows. Rice kernels were scattered around her, the bag they had been in on the ground a few feet away. He looked warily about. A figure in the shadows turned and ran as Shan took a step toward him.
    “No doctor!” Meng snapped. She leaned over, shaking the rice from her hair, then, bracing herself on the building, rose unsteadily. Her hand went to her upper lip. Blood was dripping from her nose. “I’m prone to nosebleeds,” she said. “You know, the altitude.”
    “You were just attacked, Lieutenant.” He handed Meng her hat. “A Public Security officer was attacked.”
    “Nonsense. We … collided,” Meng said weakly. “Not looking where I was going.”
    Shan looked up the alley, out to the square. “You were watching me. Following me.”
    “I strive to learn from my elders. Like I said, you are wise in the ways of Beijing.”
    He stared at her. The more he interacted with Meng the more of an enigma she became. There should be urgent radio calls, plans for a sweep of the town. People were sent to prison for years for lifting a hand against a knob officer. He considered her words. Which ways of Beijing worried her?
    “You knew who they were,” he said. It was not a question. “Just like you knew who that other man was. The one labeled south. His tattoo was like the banner of a gang.”
    Meng fished a napkin from a pocket and held it to her nose. “They describe themselves as more of a social club. The Jade Crows they call themselves, a group of undesirables from Yunnan. Someone there decided to give them transportation to Tibet instead of prison.”
    “You mean they bribed some court official.”
    Meng acted as if she had not heard. “It’s part of the model for pioneer towns. Mix the populations. Don’t let one group take over the town.”
    “They show every sign of having taken over the town, Lieutenant. Your town.” He turned at the sound of footsteps in the alley. The Tibetan constables were running toward them.
    Meng seemed about to argue, then looked at her bloody napkin. “It’s late. I have a long drive to headquarters,” she said, then turned and disappeared around the corner of the building.
    Headquarters. She meant the district Public Security headquarters, twenty miles north of the Lhadrung County line. Shan reminded himself that she did not report to Liang but to other officials, officers who had set pacification as her primary duty. He was tempted to follow her, but outside the county Shan’s meager protection would not exist. Outside Lhadrung he was no one, a former gulag inmate who had ignored the rules requiring former prisoners to remain in the county of their registration.
    He looked back at the square. The checker players had all disappeared.
    *   *   *
    The responsibilities of the Irrigation Inspector for the northern townships of Lhadrung County were far-reaching. Shan’s district encompassed nearly a thousand square miles. His first annual reckoning to the county seat had reported two hundred and twenty-five road culverts, twenty earthen dams, and three hundred and fifty miles of ditches used for drainage. In a lighter moment he had once mentioned to Lokesh that his was an honored post, an office that had existed in the old Chinese empires, and for the next week the old Tibetan had addressed him with imperial honorifics. In reality it was a job that kept Shan covered in mud much of the time. His assignment had been the clever, and cruel, inspiration of the county governor, Colonel Tan, who had grudgingly accepted the obligation to protect Shan after he had saved Tan from a false accusation of murder the year before. But Tan had wanted Shan as far away as possible, and so humiliated he might be tempted to flee. The appointment, and moving Shan’s son Ko to Shan’s former prison camp in Lhadrung were, Tan had sternly warned, the last favors he would ever do for