I untie my goatskin bag. I remove the chunni from my head and dampen it with water from the bag. I start with Vinay’s face, washing the blood from his nose, then I wipe the sweat from his arms and legs. Silently, I pray for the safety of his wife and sons. I am vaguely aware of Lakshmi, behind me, talking quietly to my children.
When I’ve finished cleaning Vinay’s body, I turn to Lakshmi and nod. She picks up Chullu and sets him to one side of the bedroll. Rekha follows, carrying the food. My children are quiet, watchful, as if they know something sacred is happening.
Lakshmi picks up the padded cloth we sleep on, shakes it off and lays it on the ground closer to Vinay’s body. When she grabs hold of my brother’s bare legs, I place my hands under his armpits.
“Ake, dho, theen,” she counts.
Together, we lift him. The men of our tribe are lean and stringy; they’ve spent their whole lives walking up and down these mountain trails. But they’re strong, and their muscles are surprisingly heavy. We struggle, at first, to balance Vinay’s body between us, and, then, to lay him on the bedroll. I should have a clean cotton sheet to wrap him in, but then I didn’t expect to be performing his last rites today. We wrap him in the bedroll as best as we can, then carry him to the horse, who prances and raises his head high, his eyes rimmed in white. He’s spooked by the dead body. Lakshmi motions to me to lay the body down again. She walks to the chestnut, strokes his muzzle, talking to him softly until he’s calm.
We try again to hoist Vinay’s body onto the saddle. It takes us several tries, but we manage. I watch as Lakshmi uses a coil of rope to secure the body to the saddle.
She has been quiet throughout this ordeal, leading me tenderly through every step. If she hadn’t come along, what would I have done? How could I have handled this—my brother’s dead body, my aloneness, my grief, my children—without her? Malik has told me about their time in Jaipur—when Lakshmi was such a sought-after henna artist. I can picture her—taking care of her clients, soothing them, comforting them, as she soothed and comforted me today.
Reluctantly, I pull the yellow matchbox from my skirt pocket and hold it up for her to see. “This has something to do with whatever Vinay was up to. I think that’s what he was trying to tell me before he...”
She takes the matchbox from me. “Canara Private Enterprises Limited, Shimla,” she reads aloud. She frowns and looks at me, a question in her eyes, but I can only shrug my shoulders in response.
She nods, understanding. “Mind if I keep this?” She puts it in the pocket of her coat, then turns and covers the Vinay’s shrouded body with a blanket she pulled out from her saddlebag.
I hoist Chullu into his sling again and position him on my back.
“What’s your horse’s name?” Much to my surprise, it’s Rekha, my quiet girl, talking to Lakshmi.
“Chandra,” Lakshmi says.
“Why did you name him that?”
“You see that mark on his forehead? Don’t you think it looks like the crescent moon?”
Rekha stares at the horse. “When I get a horse someday, I’ll name him Gooddu.”
Lakshmi smiles at my daughter. “That’s a fine name. How did you come up with it?”
“That’s what Malik calls me.”
Lakshmi glances at me, smiling. When she turns again to my daughter, she says, “But if you name him Gooddu, how will you know if Malik is calling you or your horse?”
Rekha frowns. Then her face brightens. “Well, I don’t have a horse yet, do I?”
Lakshmi’s pretty laughter echoes in the narrow crevice.
Gradually, we make our way out of the canyon and down the trail toward Shimla: Lakshmi leading the horse, Rekha chatting to Lakshmi, me carrying baby Chullu, Neela following behind. I’m heartbroken about Vinay, and I’m glad we found him, but I’m also relieved to be going back home. I hadn’t realized how much I’d depended on my people when I’d lived with my tribe. The mountains are no place for a woman—or man—alone. A sunny sky can turn gloomy in an instant; a leopard can gut a goat while your head is turned; a pit viper can paralyze a child in seconds. I reach around to pat Chullu’s head, to reassure myself that he’s still there.
We’ve been walking for only twenty minutes when we hear sheep bleating, and the jingle of the bells around their necks. Neela answers them. To our right, in the distance, and above the tree line, we see them: a flock of sheep far up on the mount. Before I can hold her back, Neela bounds up the hill. I follow. When I reach the top, I’m out of breath. I check the ears of one sheep, then the others: the markings on their ears are my brother’s. I probe their ribs to see if bars of gold are hidden underneath their fleece. They are. I return to the trail, where Lakshmi and Rekha are waiting, to tell them what I’ve found.
“Good. We can take the flock into town,” Lakshmi says.
I stare at her. “There must be thirty or forty of them. Where would we keep them?”
Lakshmi smiles. “The hill people who come to the Community Clinic. I’m sure one of them would be willing to shepherd a flock for a short while.” She surveys the horizon. “We have to move them now or we’ll lose the light. It will be much harder to keep track of the flock and protect them from wolves when it’s dark.”
She’s right.
“And the gold bars?” she asks.
“Still with the sheep.”
She nods. “Good. First thing tomorrow, we’ll start searching.” She takes the matchbox from her pocket and examines it again. “Canara Enterprises. Maybe they can tell us something.”
Do the furrows on her forehead mean she’s worried, or just curious? Is she really so confident, or is she just pretending for my sake? I rest my hand on my son’s head again. We’re in unfamiliar territory here. Neither of us knows the people Vinay was working for. How many of them there are. What my brother’s arrangement with them was.
I look at Vinay’s body draped over the horse. And I realize: I’m angry. At Vinay. He has made his responsibility mine—something I never bargained for. Now I’m the one who has to keep my family and his from being hurt. Vinay has threatened the lives of everyone in our tribe, too! How could he be so foolish? Why would he put everyone we love in danger?
The more I struggle to control my panic, the angrier I feel. And more confused. I know I shouldn’t be resentful when I’ve sought the same for my children, as Vinay wanted for his. Who am I to judge him when my bond to the tribe is now as fragile as a spiderweb?
I glance at Lakshmi. Her back is straight, one hand holding Chandra’s reins, and the other holding Rekha’s hand. To look at her you’d think she has this situation under her control. She’ll make sure Vinay is sent on to his next life as he should be. She’s come all this way and taken on a risk that Vinay thrust upon us, when she could have washed her hands of the whole affair.