Sangkar turns off the cellphone and announces that he has hired a bus and driver, and that they will arrive shortly. Once again he apologizes for stranding us. He lights another cigarette, meets the eyes of each of us, and repeats that life is suffering, but life is sacred. He wants each moment promised him.

“If that driver killed a yak or a sheep,” he adds, “precious to the herder and farmer, the villagers would have come to our bus. They would have stoned it, turned the bus over.” He puffs furiously on his cigarette.

Is what he says true? I don’t know. Tibet is a country with a history of violence against foreigners.

“Sangkar,” I say, “you made the right decision.” Everyone chimes agreement.

“You are OK here, waiting?” he asks.

“We’re a group satisfied with small pleasures,” I answer. Everyone laughs, and after a moment he does too.

The morning passes. A small goat that has been separated from his herd grazes the steep mountainside. Some scientists see how close they can get to him. The goat continues eating as they approach, then steps back at the last moment so that he is always more than an arm’s length away. His pursuers slip on loose rocks and laugh at each other.

Somebody breaks out a package of cookies and passes it around. Sangkar hands out water. “The driver will be here soon, and we’ll find a restaurant,” he says. “I have just spoken to him.” He waves his cellphone at us. “He was given a ticket hurrying to get here, but he is on his way again.”

Incredulous, I turn to Kevin and say, “A speeding ticket?”

Kevin shakes his head. John playfully takes bets on the driver’s speed.

“Let’s walk along the river,” I say, taking Kevin’s hand. We scale the small boulders. The water is pristine. The pebbles beneath it seem to shimmer. Yaks dip their heads and drink, then step in with surprising grace to cool themselves. The breeze carries the scent of their dung, valuable in this land of little wood. In the frigid cold of winter, yak dung can keep a family warm and alive. We bend and put our hands in the water, and my wiggling fingers spread slivers of liquid diamonds. Since we’ve come here, Kevin and I seem to have shrugged off the superfluous disagreements that nag any relationship. We’ve become more tolerant of each other, more loving.

We return to the group just as two nomad men saunter by dressed in chubas (traditional black wool tunics) and leather sashes. Silver-tipped knives bump casually against their legs. They stare at us in amusement. We are indeed a strange sight on this rocky plain, in our windbreakers and sock hats and visored caps. Dusty and pale-skinned, we fill bags with commonplace rocks and foliage as if they were treasure.

Sangkar greets them in Tibetan, notices one of them carries a slingshot, and asks to borrow it. A nomad’s slingshot is made of horsehair and wool. An experienced hunter, Sangkar says, can kill an animal with one at fifty yards. Obviously adept, he demonstrates, swinging it in a wide, swift arc, the whoosh of air loud and urgent. The stone flies and hits the rock at which Sangkar was aiming. Then he passes it around to anybody who would like to try, demonstrating each time it reaches a new volunteer. Fritz, a German, does his able best, but the rock drops to the ground like, well, a rock. The Tibetans laugh good-naturedly. A number of people try under Sangkar’s patient tutelage, but it proves remarkably difficult, and nobody has mastered it by the time the bus finally pulls up. We’ve been stranded here four hours.

We thank the nomads, who say goodbye and wander off. The new driver, a young Chinese man in chinos and shirt sleeves, stows the luggage away. On the bus, Sangkar introduces him as Mr. Chan and tells us that our journey will now be safe. We all clap. Mr. Chan waves hello with a confident smile, settles into his seat, and turns the key in the ignition.

A half-hour later we hurry through lunch. Sangkar helps the bewildered restaurant owner, who is unaccustomed to having forty-four tourists drop in for a meal. Because of our delay, Mr. Chan will later be forced to drive in darkness over steep mountains to reach the hotel. Back on the bus we stare out the window at the vegetation, purple mountains topped with snow, the occasional ruins of monasteries destroyed by the Chinese during the Cultural Revolution. Devout Tibetans have adorned the ruins with prayer flags.

Mr. Chan is a cautious driver at first, but as the afternoon goes on, he begins to speed up, pass cars, veer onto the wrong side of the road. Within an hour, Sangkar has admonished him at least six times. Mr. Chan obeys, but then, as if of its own volition, the bus accelerates again. We rock back and forth and in a few places rise off our seats. Mr. Chan claims a larger and larger portion of the road, forcing other drivers against the mountainside or, in one instance, into a ditch. We remain silent, trusting that Sangkar will handle this. Mr. Chan swerves widely around a car pulling out of a dirt road, and it spins out in a cloud of dust behind us. He twists around a narrow curve, blasting his horn, and then there is a sickening thud. The bus stops with a jolt that throws me against the seat in front.

Sangkar’s voice rises in anger, and Mr. Chan’s response is cowed, rather than his usual rapid Chinese speech. The bus door opens. Sangkar turns to us and says, “Stay here. Inside.” He and Mr. Chan step out on the unpaved road. We crowd to the windows and look out: a smashed motorcycle, a young man groaning beside it, holding his head.

A flood of dread washes away the serenity of the last two weeks, leaving behind the knowledge of how tenuous that peace actually was. I have never been in a vehicle that has hit a human being. I feel enormous concern and guilt at my involvement, however incidental. I wonder how far the nearest hospital is. The dented chrome on the motorcycle creates a fractured prism of light.

Ten minutes pass. We huddle together as a group, unable to look away. The bus grows steamy with our body heat and the sun beating down on the metal roof. Kevin remains in his seat, eyes closed, sweat pouring down his face.

I whisper, “Are you OK ?”

“Yeah,” he whispers back. “Why doesn’t anybody in this country wear a helmet?”

I squeeze his shoulder and return to the others. We force open the windows to a flood of sultry air that offers little respite. Sangkar is on his cellphone. The motorcyclist, stretched out on the ground, continues to groan. Mr. Chan is silent, impassive.

“Is Sangkar calling a hospital?” I mutter.

The Finnish scientist beside me replies, “I pray so.”

Ten more aching minutes pass. Villagers begin to arrive in small groups. I feel a worsening fear. If a bus might be stoned over a yak, cow, or goat, what about a human being?

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