In the sky, dark clouds moved slowly over the Shan Hills. The oxcart rattled along the road. Edgar clutched his bag to his chest. At Khin Myo’s suggestion, he had left most of his belongings in Mandalay, taking with him only a spare change of clothes and important papers, and tools to mend the piano. Now he could hear the faint clink of the metal as they struggled over ruts in the road. At Mahamuni Pagoda they disembarked, and Khin Myo led him along a small path to where a boy stood waiting. He was dressed in flowing blue trousers and a blue shirt, with a checkered cloth tied about his waist. Edgar had read that many of the Shan men, like the Burmans, kept their hair long, and noticed that the boy wore his wrapped in a colorful turban that looked like something between the Burmese gaung-baung and those of the Sikh soldiers. He held the reins of two small ponies.

“Mingala ba,” he said to them, bowing slightly. “Hello, Mr. Drake.”

Khin Myo smiled at him. “Mr. Drake, this is Nok Lek, he will take us to Mae Lwin. His name means ‘little bird.’” She paused, then added, “Don’t let this mislead you. He is one of Anthony Carroll’s best fighters.”

Edgar looked at the boy. He seemed scarcely fifteen years old.

“Do you speak English?” he asked.

“A little,” said the boy with a proud grin, and reached down to take their bags.

“You are being modest,” said Khin Myo. “You are learning very fast.”

Nok Lek began to secure the bags to the saddles. “I hope you know how to ride, Mr. Drake,” he said when he had finished. “These are Shan ponies. Smaller than English horses, but very good in mountains.”

“I’ll try my best to hold on,” said Edgar.

“Ma Khin Myo will ride with me,” said Nok Lek. He put both hands on the pony’s back and leapt lightly into its saddle. He was barefoot, and he slipped his feet into a pair of rope stirrups, holding the hemp between his first and second toes. Edgar noticed the boy’s calves, muscles like knotted ropes. Nervously, he looked at his own pony: English metal stirrups. Khin Myo climbed on behind Nok Lek and sat sideways with both feet together. Edgar was surprised that the little animal could walk under such a load. He mounted his own pony. Without speaking, they began to move east.

Above the Shan Hills, a smudge of light spread up the sky. Edgar expected to see the sun rise, to mark the day as the start of the final leg of a journey he had begun to think he would never make. But it was hidden in the clouds and the land brightened gradually. Ahead, Khin Myo opened a small parasol.

They rode east for several hours at a slow pace, along a road that ran past dry rice fields and empty granaries. Along the way they passed processions into town, men leading oxen to market, women with heavy loads balanced on their heads. Soon the crowds thinned, and they found themselves alone. They crossed a small stream and turned south on a smaller, dustier road between two wide, fallow rice fields.

Nok Lek turned back. “Mr. Drake, we go faster now. It is days to Mae Lwin, and the roads here are good, not like in Shan States.”

Edgar nodded, and gripped his reins. Nok Lek hissed at his pony; it began to trot. Edgar kicked at the flanks of his. Nothing happened. He kicked harder. The pony didn’t move. Nok Lek and Khin Myo were getting smaller in the distance. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He hissed.

They galloped south along a small road that paralleled the Shan Hills to the east and the Irrawaddy to the west. Edgar stood in the saddle with one hand on the reins, the other holding his hat. As they rode, he found himself laughing, thrilled by the speed. On the hunt, they had only walked the ponies, and he tried to remember when he had last ridden a horse this fast. It must have been nearly twenty years ago, when he and Katherine had spent a holiday with a cousin of hers who had a small farm in the country. He had almost forgotten the pounding thrill of the speed.

They stopped in the late morning at a rest station for pilgrims and travelers, and Nok Lek bought food from a nearby house, curries and scented rices and salads of mashed tea wrapped in the leaves of a banana plant. As they ate, Nok Lek and Khin Myo spoke in rapid Burmese. At one point Khin Myo apologized to Edgar for not speaking in English, “There is much we need to talk about. And I think you would be bored by our conversation.”

“Please don’t mind me,” said Edgar, who was quite content with their spot in the shade, from which he could see the blackened rice fields. He knew they were burned by farmers in preparation for the rains, but it was difficult to convince himself that it wasn’t the sun’s doing. They stretched for miles, from the river to the abrupt rise of the Shan Hills. Like the walls of a fortress, he thought as he stared at the mountains, Or maybe they are falling, like fabric over the edge of the table, pooling on the floor in small hills and valleys. His eyes searched vainly for a road that broke the facade, but found none.

They rested briefly after lunch, and then remounted the ponies. They rode all afternoon and into the evening, when they stopped in a village, and Nok Lek knocked on the door of a small house. A shirtless man came out and the two spoke for several minutes. The man led them to the back, where there was another, smaller raised structure. Here they tied the ponies, rolled out mats on the bamboo floor, and hung mosquito nets from the ceiling. The entrance to the hut was to the south, and Edgar arranged his mattress so that his feet rested by the door, a precaution against any creatures that might visit during the night. Immediately Nok Lek grabbed the mat and turned it. “Don’t point your head to the north,” he said sternly. “Very bad. That is the direction we bury the dead.”

Edgar lay down next to the boy. Khin Myo went to bathe, and later slipped back quietly through the door. She lifted her mosquito net and climbed under it. Her mat lay inches from Edgar’s, and he pretended he was sleeping and watched her arrange her bed beside him. Soon she lay down and soon her breathing changed, and in sleep she shifted so that her face rested close to his. Through the thin cotton of the two mosquito nets, he could feel her breath, soft and warm, imperceptible were it not for the stillness and the heat.

Nok Lek woke them early. Without speaking, they packed the thin mattresses and mosquito nets. Khin Myo left and returned with her face freshly painted with thanaka. They loaded the ponies and rejoined the road. It was still dark. As he rode, Edgar felt a tremendous stiffness in his legs, his arms, his abdomen. He winced, but said nothing; Khin Myo and the boy moved gracefully and unencumbered. He laughed to himself, I am not young.

Instead of continuing south, they took another small road east, toward the lightening sky. The path was narrow, and the ponies occasionally were forced to slow to a trot. Edgar was surprised at how Khin Myo managed to balance herself, let alone hold on to the parasol. He was also surprised that, when they stopped and he collapsed in exhaustion, covered with dust and sweat, she still had the same flower in her hair that she had plucked from a bush that morning. He told her this, and she laughed. “Do you too wish to ride with a flower in your hair, Mr. Drake?”

At last, by late afternoon on the second day, they reached a set of small dry hills covered with brush and scattered boulders. The ponies slowed and followed a narrow trail. They passed by a crumbling pagoda with peeling white paint, and stopped. Khin Myo and Nok Lek dismounted without speaking, and Edgar followed. They left their shoes at the door and went through a small portal and into a dark and musty room. A gilded Buddha statue sat on a raised platform, surrounded by candles and flowers. Its eyes were dark and mournful, and it sat with its legs crossed, its hands cupped in its lap. There was no sign of anyone else. Nok Lek had brought a small wreath of flowers from his bag and set this on the altar. He knelt, and Khin Myo did the same, and both bowed low, so that their foreheads touched the cool tiles. Edgar watched Khin Myo, the tied bun of her hair shifting, baring the back of her neck. Catching himself staring, he quickly bowed in imitation.