He steps forward, but Una keeps her attention focused on the rifle without looking at him.
“Elina told me you were back,” she says.
“But you didn’t come to see me.”
“Who says I wanted to?” Finally she spares a look at him, but she keeps her poker face. “Anyone ever teach you how to clean a bolt-action rifle?”
“No.”
“Come here. I’ll show you.”
She takes Lev through the steps of removing the bolt and scope. “Pivane has been teaching me to shoot, and I’ve been finding a desire to do it,” Una tells him. “When he gets his new rifle, he’ll give me this one.”
“A little different from making guitars,” Lev says, which is what Una does.
“Both will have their place in my life,” Una tells him, then directs him in cleaning the inside of the rifle barrel with solvent and a copper brush. She says nothing about what happened the last time he was on the rez, but it hangs as heavy and as dark as gunmetal between them.
“I’m sorry about Wil,” he finally says.
Una is silent for a moment, then says, “They sent back his guitar—whoever ‘they’ is. There was no explanation, no return address. I burned it on a funeral pyre because we had no body to burn.”
Lev holds his silence. The idea of Wil’s guitar turned to ash is almost as horrifying as the thought of his unwinding.
“I know it wasn’t your fault,” Una says, “but Wil would not have helped lead that vision quest if it hadn’t been for you and would never have been taken by those parts pirates. No, it wasn’t your fault, little brother—but I wish you had never come here.”
Lev puts down the rifle barrel. “I’m sorry. I’ll go now.”
But Una grabs his arm. “Let me finish.” She lets go of him, and now Lev can see the tears in her eyes. “I wish you had never come, but you did—and ever since you left, I wished you would come back. Because you belong here, Lev—no matter what the council says.”
“You’re wrong. There’s nowhere I belong.”
“Well, you certainly don’t belong out there. The fact that you almost blew yourself up proves it.”
Lev doesn’t want to talk about his days as a clapper. Not to Una. Instead he decides to share something else. “I haven’t told anyone this, but I had a dream before my fever broke. I was jumping through the branches of a forest.”
Una considers it. “What kind of forest? Pine or oak?”
“Neither. It was a rainforest, I think. I saw this animal covered in fur. It was leading me.”
Una smiles, realizing what Lev is getting at. “Sounds like you’ve finally found your animal spirit. Was it a monkey?”
“No. It had a tail like a monkey, but its eyes were too big. Any idea what it could have been?”
Una shakes his head. “Sorry. I don’t know much about rain forest animals.”
But then Lev hears a voice behind him. “I think I know.” He turns to see Kele standing in the doorway “Big eyes, small mouth, really cute?”
“Yeah . . .”
“It’s a kinkajou.”
“Never heard of it.”
Una smirks at Lev. “Well, it’s heard of you.”
“I did a report on kinkajous,” Kele says. “They’re like the cutest animals ever, but they’ll rip your face off if you mess with them.”
The smirk never leaves Una’s face. “Small, cute, and not to be messed with. Hmm . . . Who does that remind me of?”