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Bullets For Buddha
By S. A. Barton
Copyright 2012 S. A. Barton
Smashwords Edition
Find other stories by S.A. Barton on his Smashwords profile.
The 21st Dalai Lama crouched in the back of the cave, listening intently. The clutch of devotees and Chinese soldiers sharing the cave with him fidgeted and whispered to one another, so His Holiness could hear nothing but susurrations. The men knew they were trapped, and had nothing to do but talk and wait. The corners of the lama's mouth twitched downward for a moment in frustration, but the emotion found nowhere to alight in his superbly conditioned mind and was gone as quickly as it had come. They will come when they come and that is all; no sense worrying about it now, he thought as he lowered himself gingerly to a reclining position on his layered wool blankets, easing the tight bandages around his wounded thigh. He took a slow, measured breath as the bullet within slid across the surface of the cracked bone with his movement. The pain was bright and immediate, a bifurcated crackle of lightning down the nerves of his leg to his toes and all the way to the crown of his head. He did not suppress it, but let the illusion of the pain course through the illusion of his flesh as he observed it as if from a distance, safe in the illusion of his calm mind. His toes twitched involuntarily and his lips skinned back from his teeth for a moment, but his breathing remained smooth and steady. A wisp of wind stirred the odor of gun oil and long-gone pack animals from the fabric beneath him; out on the mountain the weather must be worsening to noticeably stir the air so deep into the winding passage. The flames atop the white Red Cross candles placed on the floor against the walls guttered slightly as it passed, teasing a few weak sparks from the hard artificial wax.
The whispers between him and the exit stilled, and the Exalted Lama raised an eyebrow. Far off and muffled as in a dream, a sound had interrupted them: pop...thump...pop...thump, and a rattle of falling stone. Rifle-propelled grenades, he thought, and what a shame a Lama should know that much about fighting.
Below, the sharp Tibetan wind hared around the shoulder of the mountain with sharp crystals of week-old snow in its teeth, tearing at the cloth wound tight around Zeal Alison Caddis' face. Her eyes narrowed, crinkling deep crows' feet that had been a mere hint at the beginning of the fight for liberation more than a decade ago. She looked over her shoulder and saw Karma Charles Penrose peering high and to the left above them all at a niche in the rock that had held a sniper moments ago, before they had sent the barrage of explosives. It might still hold a sniper if he had been lucky, bitter experience had taught them that much. She signaled with her hand, no motion wasted, and saw the signs passed silently among her people. The sixty fighters left to her this fall from the two hundred of spring spread out like wings over the narrow approach to the false Lama's foul burrow, investing the three treacherous paths that converged there. It was nearly over, the end in sight. Her hands tightened on the stock of her rifle, squeezing the scarred wood dark with years of her sweat and blood until equally scarred knuckles cracked. Buddha grant the bullet that sends the false teacher to ten thousand times ten thousand lives in the hell worlds be mine, she thought. She watched her fighters pass and take up new positions. The sniper stayed silent. Perhaps he really was food for the vultures now. But the Chinese men here now were all veterans, and wily, like her men and women, so they remained cautious.
That wasn’t the only reason for caution. Both sides’ numbers were so few now. China had other concerns than renewing their numbers with a rearmed Japan allied with the Koreas, the Phillippines, and Taiwan striving to make the seas of China's coast their own private lakes for trade. But it still found the resources to send weapons to its remaining men. Much like the United States, busy with its own concerns, found the resources to send weapons to the fighters of the American Lineage Tibetan Buddhist Temple. Or, “Bullets For Buddha” as so many, Buddhist or otherwise, around the world derisively called it.