“It is being put to a vote, and you shall abide by the result, boy. Is that understood?”
Lev casts his eyes downward, humbling himself, giving the chief the respect due him. “Yes, sir.”
The chief raises his voice to a commanding volume. “All in favor of adopting the petition to publicly and officially open the reservation to all Unwinds seeking asylum, affirm with a show of hands.”
Three hands go up. Then a fourth.
“All those opposed?”
Eight hands rise in opposition. And just like that, AWOL hope among the Arápache is lost.
“The petition fails,” the chief says. “However, in light of extenuating circumstances, I move that we officially and publicly accept Levi Jedediah Calder-Garrity as a full-fledged child of the Arápache Nation.”
“That’s not what I asked for, sir.”
“But it’s what you’ve received, so be thankful for it.”
Lev is admitted to the tribe by a unanimous show of hands. Then Chief Quanah instructs the council members to return the books of Unwind names to Lev.
“No, keep them,” Lev says. “When the Cap-17 law falls, and when the Juvenile Authority starts unwinding kids without their parents’ permission, you can add the new names by hand.”
“We will do no such thing,” says the chief, insisting on the last word, “because those things will never happen.” Then he calls for the next petitioner.
• • •
The walls of Lev’s room are undecorated. The furniture is well crafted but understated. The bedroom is just as it was when Lev came to the Tashi’ne home the first time, the same as when he returned six weeks ago. He now knows why he feels so at home here: His soul is a lot like these Spartan walls. He tried to fill the emptiness with the angry graffiti of the clapper, but it washed clean. He accepted being a shining god for the ex-tithes in the Cavenaugh mansion, but that chalky portrait wiped away. He tried to draw himself a hero by saving Connor’s life, but even after he succeeded, he felt no glory, no sense of honorable completion. And he curses his parents for raising him to be a tithe—for no matter how he runs from that destiny, it is imprinted so deep in his psyche that he will never be free of it. He will never feel complete, for there will always be that unwanted, uncomprehending part of himself that can only be completed in his demise. Far worse than his parents disowning him was that: raising him to only find satisfaction in the negation of his own existence.
On the evening of the day Lev fails to change the world in council, Elina comes to his room. She rarely does that, for she is a woman who respects privacy and contemplative solitude. She finds him lying on his stomach atop his tightly made bed. His pillow is on the floor because he doesn’t care enough to pick it up.
“Are you all right?” she asks. “You ate very little at dinner.”
“I just want to sleep tonight,” he tells her. “I’ll eat tomorrow.”
She lingers, sitting down in the desk chair. She picks up the pillow and puts it on the bed, and he turns to face the wall, hoping she’ll just go away, but she doesn’t.
“There were four votes for your petition,” Elina reminds him. “A single vote would have been surprising, considering the council’s resistance to taking a stand on unwinding. You may not realize it, but four votes is a veritable coup!”
“It doesn’t change a thing. The petition failed. Period.”
Elina sighs. “You’re not yet fifteen, Lev, and you came within three votes of changing tribal policy. Surely that counts for something.”
He turns to look at her now. “Horseshoes and hand grenades.” And off her confused expression, he explains, “It’s something Pastor Dan used to say. Those are the only two situations where being close counts.”
She chuckles her understanding, and Lev turns away from her again.
“Perhaps in the morning you can go out with Pivane, and he can teach you to hunt. Or maybe you could help Una in the shop. If you asked, I’m sure she’d let you work with her to build her instruments.”
“Is that it for me then? I go out hunting, or I become a luthier’s apprentice?”
Now Elina’s voice becomes chastising, and a little cold. “You came here because you longed for a simpler, safer way of living. Now you resent us for giving it to you?”
“I don’t resent anyone . . . I just feel . . . I don’t know . . . unfulfilled.”
“Welcome to the human race,” she tells him with a bit of rueful condescension. “You should learn to relish the hunger more than the feast, lest you become a glutton.”
Lev groans, not having the strength or even the desire to parse the poignancy from yet another of Elina’s pithy Arápache metaphors.
“A great man knows not only when he’s called upon, but also when he’s not,” says Elina. “The truly great know how to accept and embrace a common life, just as much as the call to duty.”
“Then I will never be great, will I?”
“Listen to you! You posture like a man, but you pout like a child.” It’s a scolding, but she says it with such warmth in her voice that Lev both appreciates it and finds it embarrassing.
“I’ve never been a child,” he tells her with a sadness no one but he will ever truly understand. “I’ve been a tithe, a clapper, and a fugitive, but never a child.”
“Then be one now, because you deserve it. Be a child, if only for one night.”
The last person to suggest such a thing was Pastor Dan. The night before he was killed by an explosion that was meant for Lev.
Neither of them speak for a moment. If Elina is uncomfortable with the silence, she doesn’t show it. Then she begins to gently rub his back and sing to him in Arápache. Her voice is sweet, if not entirely on key. Lev has learned enough of the language to know what the song is about. It’s a lullaby, perhaps one she used to sing to Wil when he was very little. It speaks of the moon and the mountain. How the mountain pushes forth from the earth, reaching ever skyward in a vain attempt to grab the moon, but the mischievous moon keeps slipping behind the mountain’s peak to hide, remaining forever unattainable. Lev thinks of the challenge of his animal spirit—to bring down the moon—and he wonders if Elina even realizes what she’s singing. Not a lullaby, but a lament.
When she’s done, Lev’s eyes are closed, and he’s slowed his breathing to a gentle snuffle. Elina leaves, probably thinking he’s asleep, but he’s not. Lev will not sleep well tonight, if he sleeps at all. As much as he thought he wanted it, he is immune to a normal life and is addicted to a life of dangerous sway. He must make a difference out there. He must satisfy the hunger, elbowing himself a place at the feast.
The council dismissed his petition out of hand. Perhaps petitions are too tame an approach. Perhaps what Lev needs is a method that’s more extreme. He’s seen extreme. He’s lived it. He knows how to play with fire. Perhaps this time he can use what he knows to serve his own ends, not someone else’s.
He shares none of this with Elina, or Una, or with anyone else on the reservation. But silently and alone, he begins to plan.
Today he failed to change the world.
As for tomorrow, who can tell?
24 • Cam
Security at the Molokai complex is state-of-the-art and extreme. No one gets into the compound who doesn’t belong there. The outside fences are electrified and tranq-charged. The gates boast scanners that can sniff you and decode your DNA just as easily as tell your brand of deodorant. Only the best for Proactive Citizenry’s bioresearch facility. Unfortunately, all security systems are flawed and limited by the arrogance of whoever designed it. In this case, the designers were arrogant enough to think that they only needed to secure the place from people on the outside. No one counts on a fox that’s already inside the fence.