The Search for the Pink-Headed Duck, page 8
“That’s why I’m here. The duck is part of my dream.”
“If you get caught, you know the rules: we don’t know you and you don’t know us… Good. You will have to pay for gas, and let’s see… How long do you want to go for?”
“A week to ten days.”
“Ten days… OK, you will have to pay us,” he pauses for a moment, “ohhh, that comes to a thousand rupees each plus expenses.”
“Deal,” I agree, after calculating the dollar value ($130 plus).
Three hours later we’re on the road to Yumthang in the Rover, which His Holiness has loaned Padam and Phuchung until he moves to another monastery. As we bounce along, I cradle my charms; their power seems to be working. In a burst of exuberance, I wish out loud for a beer. The Rover slams to a stop.
“Will you buy?” Padam asks.
Phuchung swings the car around and drives as fast as he can. We pull up to a small farm and start honking. Two cows stop chewing to stare at us, and the chickens scatter. The farmhouse appears to be made from bits and pieces of every kind of grass and tree growing at this altitude. The front door cracks open and an old man peers out suspiciously. Padam sticks his head out the car window and says something in Lepcha. I stay behind while they “conduct business.” Moments later I hear laughter and the clinking of glasses, sounds that continue for the next hour. Finally Padam and Phuchung return with armloads of assorted bottles, some big, some small, some green, most clear, and all containing beer. Like the bottles, the caps have been used before, and it takes some doing to pry them loose. I take my first sip just as the Rover hits a rut, and the beer foams and sprays all over me. It has a tangy taste, as if orange peels were added years ago, as well as a hint of ginger. The aftertaste has the bite of cardamom. Whatever, it’s delicious.
After a few bottles, Padam starts loosening up, telling me local legends about the uncharted area, supposed home of man-beasts and spirits.
“If you do not find that duck, maybe you will see Me-Gu! If you are very lucky, it will chase you all the way into the Valley of Bliss,” he says, laughing.
Me-Gu, better known in the west as the Abominable Snowman, is just as real to Padam and Phuchung as the Himalayan black bear or the snow leopard, rare species that few people have actually seen. The Valley of Bliss is a place of intoxicating beauty and serenity. When a hillsman wanders from his camp and never returns, it’s believed that he has found that sacred valley.
“If we only knew where it was, we would go and never return. They say it is in the rhododendron forest,” Padam speculates between gulps.
“We both have friends who have seen Me-Gu. Not far from Yumthang… Do not believe stories about it attacking people. It runs when it sees people.”
Phuchung digs into his pocket, pulls out a small leather bag, and shows me the special charm that protects him from Me-Gu.
Me-Gu is thought to be a human being whose body has been possessed by a devil. If Padam or Phuchung ever sees one, he will run to a lama as quickly as possible. Although the charm keeps the devil at bay, only the incantations formulated by the wizard-priest Guru Rimpoche, the eighth-century mystic and founder of Lamaism, can purge the believer of the effects of Me-Gu’s evil eye. As I carry the holiest, most powerful charms either of them have seen, they’re certain we’re safe from all devils.
However, I’m not safe from soldiers or the loose tongues of villagers. Phuchung will check with a relative in Yumthang about hiring a donkey to carry my food and gear.
“I would go with you, but I have a girlfriend in Yumthang,” Padam boasts.
“Were you planning to come here anyway?” I ask.
“It was none of your business,” he says with a smile.
A couple of miles from Yumthang, Phuchung drops me off in a thickly wooded area. They will go into town to make arrangements for the donkey. When they reappear two hours later, it sounds as if a parade is approaching. The Rover’s horn is tooting and both of them are singing.
“Sounds like your duck, eh?” Padam yells. “Quack quack quack!” He hands me another beer while Phuchung blasts out a tempo with the horn. “Honk! Honk-honk-honk! Honk!”
“Stop. Stop it!” I plead, a hangover already setting in. “I thought we were supposed to be quiet.”
“You are the one who must be quiet, not us,” Padam replies, quacking as Phuchung beeps again.
They’ve found Phuchung’s relatives, Padam’s girlfriend, and another smuggler willing to rent his donkey for an exorbitant price.
“It comes with food,” Padam consoles as I hand over the money.
They cover me with a tarp, and we drive through town, making our way slowly as they stop to chat with friends. Later Padam tells me that “the people around here think India is a foreign country. Most of them have never seen a plainsman. Just speak Hindi if you have bad luck and happen to meet anyone.”
On the other side of town I get out and once again hide in a thicket while they retrieve the donkey. As the afternoon drifts by, I become increasingly anxious, worried that they’ve gotten so drunk that they’ve forgotten me or can’t drive. I search my Tibetan phrase book for an appropriately angry greeting. Unfortunately, the text is suited only for polite conversation, lacking essential slang and swearwords. The most appropriate sentence I can construct is “Your rates are expensive and service poor, dogs in the street.” I’ve just memorized it when I hear the clop-clop of a four-legged animal. I drop behind a bush.
“Duck Man. Oh, Duck Man,” I hear Padam hooting in a sing-song voice. “Where, oh, where is the Duck Man?”
“Right here,” I shout, adding my Tibetan sentence.
“Been studying, huh?… Here, let me tell you some really bad words,” he says, rattling off a few. As Padam nears, the smell of liquor overpowers even the odor of the donkey. Phuchung, right on his heels, parks the Rover between us. They help me unload the supplies, advising me to take more food than I had planned on.
“You never know what might happen,” Padam chuckles.
Donning the robes and hat of a lama, I become the only six-foot-two-inch monk in Sikkim. The three of us walk down a path leading to a stream, pulling the donkey along. When we are past the spot where villagers bathe, we stake out a campsite. After showing me how to hobble, feed, and pack the donkey, Padam suggests an itinerary: “Follow the stream for several days and then take a left. Come back the same way, and we will meet here in eight days.”
“That’s it?” I say incredulously.
He assures me that the army is nowhere near. The trail along the stream is rarely used by villagers. If I encounter anyone, it will be a yak herder or Me-Gu.
“Remember, be careful. I promised His Holiness to deliver you safely to Siliguri.”
We agree that I should leave a strip of yellow fabric at my campsites and at the turn up to the steppes toward the rhododendron forest. As the two of them leave, Phuchung whispers to Padam, who translates: “He wants to know if you are scared?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Stay that way and you will be OK… Goodnight, Duck Man.”
5
Into the Valley of Bliss
Above me the moon begins its swing across an ebony sky. Draco and Lyra dot the northern horizon, Gemini and Orion lie to the east. The tall pines are motionless, and my breath hangs in the chill air. The soft murmuring of the river spirit puts me at ease.
I build a small fire, keeping the flames low. Any strong aromas will attract the village dogs, so I eat a spare meal of biscuits and tea. As I climb under my blankets of yak hair and nettle fiber, I wish I had brought my hot-water bottle.
I decamp before dawn and scoot ahead of any village bather or wood gatherer. The donkey seems willing to follow me. She is quite small, standing about four feet at the shoulder, but her long ears make her appear taller. Padam forgot to tell me her name, and in an uninspired moment I dub her “Partner.” My only other experience with a pack animal was years ago in North Africa while traveling along the edge of the Sahara searching for a rare desert bloom. That beast, a mule, was nasty and foul-tempered. I named it Monster.
During the monsoon season this branch of the Tista is a raging torrent that claws at its banks and climbs into the forest, at war with anything trying to contain it. But now, well into the dry season, the river is less than a fifth of its full size. The high-water mark, where trees have been stripped of branches, is clearly visible above me.
Despite Padam’s assurances that the trail is rarely used, I’m still worried about being spotted by a villager. I rush along, trying to put distance between me and Yumthang. My paranoia fades as the shadows lengthen. The combination of fatigue, acclimation, and impending darkness finally slows my pace.
Ahead I notice a Himalayan pied kingfisher hovering over the water. Taking several deep breaths, I summon its distant cousin.
“Q-U-A-C-K, quack, quar-o-whack!”
“Hee-haw. Hee-haw,” Partner brays.
The kingfisher darts into the trees, its speckled black-and-white plumage blending with the bark. A jungle myna lets out a cry from somewhere inside the evergreens. Indian moorhens join in, drowning out the myna with their tinny call: “Careek-crek-rek.”
Partner and I keep an eye out for a suitable place to sleep. The sun sets early here. Rather than slipping behind a remote horizon, it impales itself on the towering Himalayan spurs. Just before darkness the mountains, ringed by light, appear to ignite, sparking thousands of Saint Elmo’s fires. As I watch the last traces of color glaze the left bank of the river, I’m drawn to a dark shape among the boulders—the entrance to a cave. There are no tracks around, but to be certain I don’t startle a sleeping mountain cat or bear, I bark loudly and toss a few stones into the opening. Nothing growls or crawls out, so I poke my head inside and turn on a flashlight. The cave reverberates with the sound of flapping wings.
Whap, whap, whap, whap … whoosh! whoosh!
Two Himalayan leaf-nosed bats fly out, sending me to the ground. Though my field guide says they’re harmless, the leaf-nosed are the largest and most frightening of Indian bats. Their faces, the color of raw umber, look devilish, with ears shaped like horns. Their name is derived from the membrane of their noses, an organ that detects the slightest variation in sound waves.
I unload Partner, who has remained quiet throughout the excitement. Tonight, as a reward for her docile behavior, I give her a double helping of food. There’s plenty of driftwood for a fire, and with a few whacks of my machete, I cut enough pine boughs for a mattress. Dinner is rice, lentils, and onions, with a dessert of a chocolate bar and one cigarette, only my third of the day. At sea level a pack a day barely keeps my hands from jittering, but at this altitude my thirst for nicotine has waned drastically.
When I awaken the next morning, my pink-headed duck call echoes down the river canyon. “Scree-scree,” wail kingfishers on the wing; spotted babblers trill; and a pair of racket-tailed drongos, with their shiny plumage and two long cobalt tail feathers, respond with a metallic clicking, “Kapock-tanka-tanka.” Alas, no quacks.
Partner and I forge onward as the red morning sky turns to slate. Cumulonimbus clouds pile up, riding the van of a cold front. Feeling certain that the nearly dry riverbed will contain the rainfall without flooding, I follow its edge, climbing the bank to circumvent giant boulders or steep inclines. Thickening clouds blot out the mountaintops as the rain begins. At first it’s a gentle drizzle, but then the wind kicks up, shaking loose whatever leaves remain on the trees, and it begins to pour. Water splatters against the rocks and pounds the underbrush. Only the spirit of the river enjoys this change in the weather, roaring its song to Mount Kanchenjunga. My poncho becomes useless, and soon I’m as drenched as Partner. After I stumble a third time and fall hard on my shoulder, we squeeze into a rock hollow protected by an overhang. Throughout the afternoon and well into the night, the gale rages. Partner and I huddle together, shivering in the wet air.
In the morning I awake with a start. It’s a beautiful day, not a cloud in sight, but where’s Partner? Frantic, I search about and find her about a kilometer away, grazing happily alongside a brook. More interested in eating watercress than heeding my commands, she refuses to budge. I decide that if she won’t follow me, I’ll just have to follow her. To reach the rhododendrons and the uncharted region, we have to leave the stream at some point anyway, and this seems as good a spot as any.
Cartography has never been my strong point. A professor of geography, reviewing some maps I had drawn of a region in Africa, concluded: “Terra incognita is safe in your hands.” I can plot a position across any ocean, but my grasp of land measure seems infirm. A good orienteer frequently sights with a compass, triangulating positions, gridding the terrain into blocks, but I’m far too lazy to do this. Pinpoint accuracy matters little to me. As long as we’re traveling toward the unknown, we’re on the right track.
As we climb skyward, the forest dwindles into clusters of weeping spruce trees, their limbs mostly gnarled and stunted. The underbrush, generally elder and what looks like honeysuckle, gives way to the starkness of the steppes. Brownish yellow grass crackles underfoot, each stem as brittle as raw spaghetti, and blankets of moss and lichen cover the rocks. Now, in late autumn, the wildflowers are all past; ahead is the snow line, a pristine mantle draped across the Himalayas.
On we go, Partner and I, marching across trackless land, up and down the innumerable valleys until my legs ache. I don’t see any birds the entire day, but that night I hear a strange call, like a cross between a loon and a screech owl, which I can’t identify.
The morning marks my fourth on the trail, the midpoint of my tramp. By my reckoning the giant rhododendron forest is less than five kilometers away, and undoubtedly the Valley of Bliss is nearby. Me-Gu may be watching me brush my teeth. The pink-headed duck could be anywhere.
While combing the area for kindling, I hear a voice, but it’s so soft that I dismiss it as my imagination and go on about my business. But the voice calls again, and this time I answer, “Hell-o. Who’s that?”
“Ah, hell-o, my friend,” a man says in Hindi as he steps from behind a large rock. His beard reaches to his slender waist. He walks toward me with outstretched hands.
“Welcome,” he says, clasping my arms.
“Who are you?” I ask, startled.
“An old man doing penance,” he replies in perfect English.
He’s shoeless and wears a threadbare robe, yet the early morning cold doesn’t seem to affect him. His eyes are deep-set, rounder than those of a hillsman, and his skin is dark, suggesting family roots in southern India.
“Englishman, yes?” he asks.
“American. Would you like a shawl, or something to eat?”
“No, thank you. I have all I need.”
I invite him to share tea and a meal with me. Instead he points northward and tells me that his home is close by. I quickly load Partner and we head off. I’m full of questions, but the old man asks for silence.
“Let us enjoy the first light,” he says. “If you listen closely you will hear the world awake. It is my favorite time of day.”
After we have walked for half an hour, the outline of the giant rhododendron forest looms above us, a black smudge on the horizon. The closer we get, the more immense and imposing it becomes. At last. I touch a leaf, making contact with one of nature’s grandest spectacles. Towering over my head are the largest rhododendrons of the world, the giganteum species, each as big as an American ranch house. It’s long past their flowering season, but a few stubborn, wilted blossoms remain. The leaves, almost a foot long, are a glossy kelly green with velvety brown undersides.
“Please,” says my guide, motioning toward a small lean-to. “My home. Consider it yours.”
The rickety structure is an adequate windbreak but offers little protection from rain or cold. I glance about his camp, noting that his worldly belongings—a small wooden bowl, a spoon, a kettle, a pot, and a tin cup—could fit inside my camera bag. His bed is a layer of grass and leaves. Hanging in the corner is a beautifully embroidered sash, which my host tells me is a somthag, or meditation sash. By tying it under his knees and around his head, he can remain in the lotus position for days on end.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he says, sitting down on a nest of branches near the campfire.
I offer some tea, and he talks while filling the kettle. It seems many eyes have been watching me since I left the river course. The yak herders have been tracking me with great interest. The strange combination of my dress, size, and skin color has bewildered them. They are unsure if I’m a lama or a devil. Should I be revered or stoned? They have asked the holy man for advice.
“I promised to protect them if you were a devil… From their description, I knew you had to be lost.”
Usually, when a devil possesses a human, the body changes, becoming distorted and hairy like Me-Gu; however, the most powerful devils can slip in without radically changing their host’s appearance. These disguised devils can then enter a hut and attack its inhabitants, spreading disease and causing death. The locals believe that sickness is caused by either a curse or an evil spirit, so there will be trouble if someone falls ill while I’m in the region.
“Wear your cap at all times,” the mystic advises. “Cover as much of yourself as possible.”
“I’m not here to interfere,” I say, assuring him of my good intentions.
“You have interfered already… Stories will be told about you long after you leave.”
He arches his eyebrows and trains his eyes on my forehead. I wonder if he’s reading my thoughts and ask him if he’s a lung-gom-pa.
He doesn’t answer, and I query, “Gompchen? Or are you a nal-jor-pa?” Of all lamas, the gompchens are considered the most adept at conjuring mystical forces. It is said that they can release their spirit at will from the confinement of the body and escape the material world. The nal-jor-pas are magicians endowed with varying powers; the best-trained can cast fatal spells.
