UnBound - Neal Shusterman Page 0,45

Wil. He finds him at the end of the hall, closing his bedroom door and putting on a light jacket. He looks somehow incomplete without his guitar. Evidently Wil feels the same. His hand fingers the doorknob; then, with a sigh, he opens the door again and retrieves his guitar, and a jacket for Lev, too.

“Are we going somewhere?” Lev asks.

“Here and there.” Which seems a logical answer for a guy like Wil, but the answer makes Lev think about being unwound. The dispersal of every piece of him. Here and there. Lev climbed the rez wall desperate for some sort of sanctuary, but what if he put too much faith in rumors?

“Is it true that reservations are safe for AWOLs?” he asks. “Is it true that People of Chance don’t unwind?”

Wil nods. “We never signed the Unwind Accord. So not only don’t we unwind, we also can’t use unwound parts.”

Lev mulls that over, baffled how a society could work without harvesting organs. “So . . . where do you get parts?”

“Nature provides,” Wil says. “Sometimes.” An enigmatic look crosses Wil’s face like a shadow behind his eyes. “C’mon, I’ll show you around the rez.”

Moments later they stand on an open balcony, staring down almost four stories to a dry creek. Across the narrow gulf is the wall of a cliff, which mirrors the one into which Wil’s family’s home is carved. Other homes hewn right out of the red stone face them. They appear to be of ancient design, yet somehow modern and carved with diamond precision. New-world technology serving ancestral respect.

“Not scared of heights, are you?” Wil doesn’t wait for an answer but makes sure his guitar strap has his instrument secure on his back, then hops on a rope ladder. He climbs down, sometimes sliding for yards at a time.

Lev swallows nervously, but not as nervously as he might have three weeks ago. Lately he’s been doing plenty of dangerous things. He waits till Wil reaches the bottom, then he grits his teeth and follows him. With his left wrist still in a brace, it’s hard, and his stomach rolls every time he looks down, but Lev grins when he reaches bottom, realizing why Wil made him do this. The first thing an AWOL loses is his dignity. By allowing Lev to climb the rope alone, Wil gave his dignity back to him.

When Lev turns to Wil, he’s surprised to see that they’re not alone.

“Lev, this is my uncle Pivane.”

Lev cautiously shakes the large man’s hand, keeping an eye on the shiny tranq rifle cradled in his left arm. His deerskins are worn, and the long graying hair escaping from its rawhide knot makes him look scruffy—but there is no mistaking the designer quality of his boots or the Swiss watch on his wrist. And that fine Uruguayan rifle was probably custom made.

“How did today’s hunt go?” Wil asks. It should be a casual question, but Lev catches how intently Wil looks at his uncle.

“Tranq’d a lioness, but had to let her go: She was nursing.” Pivane rubs his eyes. “We’re heading to Cash Out Gulch in the morning. Rumors of a male down there. You coming with us for once?”

Wil doesn’t answer, and Lev wonders at the sly look Pivane gives his nephew. Lev assumed all ChanceFolk hunted, but maybe that’s just a myth. Just like everything else in his life has been.

Pivane spares a glance at Lev. “You look better than when I found you. That arm okay?”

“Yeah. Better. Thanks for saving me.” Lev can’t remember being rescued. He can’t remember much after dropping off the wall except the sharp pain in his wrist, then lying in the leaves and pine needles, certain that this was what dying felt like.

Pivane’s gaze sharpens on Wil’s guitar. “Are you going down to the medical warren today? Are you going to visit your grandfather?”

“Maybe not” is all Wil says.

The man’s voice roughens, becoming almost an accusation. “Medicine folk and musicians don’t get to choose who their hands heal. Or whose way they smooth for dying.” Then he points a finger at Wil. “You do it for him, Chowilawu.” A moment of uneasy eye contact between them, then Pivane takes a step back and shifts his rifle. “Tell your grandfather we’ll bag a heart for him tomorrow.” Then he nods a solemn good-bye to Lev and leaves, using not the ropes but an elevator that Lev did not see, and Wil did not see fit to show him.

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