The Breath of God. Jeffrey Small

       CHAPTER 1

       PUNAKHA VALLEY, BHUTAN

      “THE NEXT ONE WILL BE the most dangerous.”

      Most dangerous? Grant Matthews spat out the remnants of the Himalayan river water he’d just inhaled on the last rapid, a Class IV.

      “You good?” Dasho, his Bhutanese guide, called to him in accented English.

      “Just need to catch my breath.”

      The current slowed as the Mo Chhu, the Mother River, widened. Grant balanced his paddle on top of the neoprene spray skirt that kept the icy water from entering his kayak and shook out his arms. He needed to stretch his legs too; the yellow boat barely accommodated his six-foot-two frame.

      Dasho approached him with powerful strokes. “Monsoon season just passed. Chhu very fast now.”

      Grant pushed his helmet back, brushed his wet hair out of his eyes, and studied the guide’s tanned face, his wide cheekbones. “So, how does a Buddhist monk become a river guide?”

      When he arranged his trip to Bhutan, he’d asked his travel agent to find a tour guide familiar with the country’s many monasteries. Grant hoped to find what he’d been searching for hidden in one of them. When the agent told him that Dasho, a former monk, led tours and kayaking expeditions, he knew he’d found a kindred soul.

      “Father died two years ago,” Dasho replied. “I was only son with three sisters and a mother. Left the monastery to provide for them.”

      So he lost his father around the same age I did, Grant thought, estimating Dasho to be in his early twenties. He then quickly shrugged off the memory of his sophomore year in college: his once invincible father—the great reverend—and his scandalous death. He lifted the paddle off his lap and swept it through the water.

      “I’m sorry.”

      “No sorry.” Dasho smiled. “I could be farmer.” He pointed with his paddle across the river.

      The valley rose gently from the riverbank in tiered fields planted with wheat, peppers, and beans. A lone sun-wrinkled farmer worked the plants with a wooden hoe. On a hill beyond the fields, a strand of Buddhist prayer flags fluttered on forty-foot-high poles. The snowcapped peaks of the Himalayas framed the picture in the distance.

      “So you traveled through India before coming to the Land of Thunder Dragon?” Dasho asked, alluding to Druk Yul, the name the Bhutanese used for the tiny Buddhist kingdom nestled in the Himalayas between India and Tibet.

      Grant nodded. “Research for my PhD.”

      As soon as the words left his mouth, a rush of anxiety flooded his body. My unfinished dissertation, he thought. The members of his dissertation committee at Emory University in Atlanta, even his mentor Professor Billingsly, were skeptical when he’d first outlined his research plans five years ago. The story he proposed to track down was only a legend, they’d said, but Grant was determined to unravel the ancient mystery.

      He’d just spent a week in the cold, barren moonscape of the northern Indian Himalayas near Kashmir. Several monks at the Himis monastery in Ladakh had become suspicious of his inquiries there. A hundred years earlier, similar questions had brought unwanted attention from the West to their isolated monastery with devastating consequences for the questioner. Grant planned to handle Bhutan differently.

      He grinned at Dasho. “I much prefer your milder weather and lush landscapes.”

      “We measure progress by gross national happiness instead of gross national product.” Dasho beamed. “And you tackle toughest river?”

      “I like the challenge. Learned in college on some big water.”

      “You Americans enjoy pushing everything to extreme.” Dasho chuckled.

      “Ah, that’s the secret to our progress.”

      Progress, he thought with a hollowness in his gut. He wasn’t making much, and he was running out of time. Bhutan had hundreds of Buddhist monasteries, and he could only afford two weeks in the country. The tenuous lead he’d received at Himis from the one monk he’d befriended didn’t specify which monastery in Bhutan might hold the treasure.

      “What you are searching for was moved long ago,” the elderly monk had whispered.

      “Where?” Grant had asked, glancing down the cloistered hallway to make sure no one approached.

      The monk had shrugged. “Certainly to another Buddhist monastery. Probably Bhutan.”

      In the two days he’d been in Bhutan, Grant had already visited three major monasteries, one in Paro, the city he’d flown into, and two in Thimpu, the country’s capital. In each he’d approached several monks, but not a flicker of recognition had passed over their faces when he hinted at what he was looking for. Grant shook his head. This kayaking trip was an indulgence he couldn’t afford, even if he’d worked the past month without a day off.

      He should have finished his dissertation last year. The extension he’d received on his scholarship would run out in the spring, and he was tapped out. From the moment he’d graduated from high school, he’d been on his own financially. His father had rejected his choice of college and his academic interests. He’d worked to pay his way through undergrad at the University of Virginia and now grad school at Emory with a combination of teaching assistant jobs and late nights waiting tables.

      Grant pulled his paddle through the jade water. Sweat began to drip inside his black wet suit. What if I can’t find it? The fear nagged at him, but he wouldn’t give in to doubt. He couldn’t let the skeptics in his department at Emory prove him wrong.

      He increased the pace of his paddling. The water was getting more tumultuous, and his body responded naturally. His mind, however, was still immersed in his strategy for tracking down the truth. He stroked the paddle with his whole body, his blood surging through his veins as if powered by the energy of his resolve to return to the search. Tomorrow he would visit the monastery in Punakha, a few miles downriver from where he paddled. Of the monasteries he’d targeted, Punakha’s was the largest, but he willed himself not to get his hopes up.

      “Whoa,” Dasho called from behind. “Who you racing?”

      Grant paused to let his guide catch him. Soon the river picked up speed as the crop fields on each side transitioned into progressively steeper banks. Ten minutes later, the two kayakers were encased inside a gray granite canyon, bumping over the small rapids that occurred with increasing frequency. Only a few trees managed to grow from the sides of the craggy cliffs, their exposed roots clinging to the walls like a rock climber’s fingers searching for holds.

      Just ahead, Grant saw that the river narrowed again and then dropped out of sight beyond a grouping of boulders. “Follow me, my friend,” Dasho said, paddling into an eddy near the right cliff wall. The guide raised his voice over the noise of the falling water ahead of them. “Meet Laughing Buddha.”

      Grant pointed to the large boulder in the center of the river. “The Buddha’s head?” He enjoyed the creative names paddlers used to describe the rapids, falls, and various obstacles in their rivers, like kids finding animals in the shapes of the