UnStrung

5 • Lev

In the very center of the rez, miles from its many villages, sprawl the ChanceFolk burial grounds. Many families have adopted the Western use of caskets, more traditional ones bury their dead wrapped in a blanket, and some still invoke the most ancient ritual of all. Although levels of tradition in Wil’s family are very mixed, his grandfather was as old-school as they come. His funeral is of the ancient kind.

Tocho is placed on a high platform made of cottonwood and heaped with boughs of juniper. Reed baskets, decorated with lion teeth, are filled with food for the afterlife and hung from poles. A fire is lit, and smoke leaps into the wind. Lev watches carefully, storing the memory.

“Our ancestors believed that the breath of the dead moves to the Lower World,” Una explains to him.

Lev is shocked. “Lower World?”

“Not hell,” Una says, understanding what he’s thinking. “It’s the place where spirits dwell. Down or up—neither of those directions has much meaning in the afterlife.”

Lev can’t help but notice Wil standing apart from everyone else, as if he’s suddenly the outsider. “Why isn’t Wil taking part in the ceremony?” Lev asks Una.

“Wil followed our traditions because he loved his grandfather. Now he must decide for himself whether to follow the traditions or not. And so must you.”

Lev first thinks she’s joking. “Me?”

“When your residence petition is approved, you will be an adopted son of the tribe. In addition to protecting you from your unwind order, the adoption will make this your official home. Like everyone else here, you’ll eventually choose on which side of the rez wall your spirit belongs.”

Lev tries his best to wrap his mind around this. He hasn’t thought that far ahead: finding a safe place he can truly call home.

“Wil’s grandfather gave you a gift, Lev,” Una tells him.

Lev can’t begin to imagine what it might be. Anticipation stirs in him.

“He gave the same gift to Wil, but Wil doesn’t know it yet. You see, on his deathbed Tocho asked Wil to take you on a vision quest.”

Suddenly the wind changes, and their eyes tear from the smoke.

•

There is a communal quest in ten days’ time, and Lev is added to the group of boys and girls, to honor Tocho’s dying wish. Wil joins them as well, also to honor his grandfather’s final request.

The vision quest starts with a sweat lodge. It’s total chaos trying to keep almost a dozen ten- and eleven-year-olds occupied while sitting around hot rocks being steamed nearly to death. They drink gallons of salted cactus tea and leave the sweltering heat of the lodge only to pee, which isn’t often, since they sweat out almost everything they drink.

Lev, who always felt the youngest of any group he was in, is now the oldest. As if he didn’t already feel out of place.

After the sweat lodge, they hike into the mountains. No food on a quest either: just thick, noxious drinks that taste like weeds.

“The sweating and fasting prepare the body for the vision quest,” Wil tells him. Pivane is in charge of the quest, with Wil as a reluctant sidekick. “Of course, my uncle and I get real food,” he adds, almost taunting. Lev knows Wil is here only because he promised his grandfather.

On the first night, one kid has a vision that he tells the others at breakfast the next day. A pig spirit led him to a courthouse and told him he’d be a judge.

“He’s lying,” announces Kele, the skinny, hyper kid who often seems to speak for the others. “How much you wanna bet his parents told him to say that?”

Wil begins to call the boy out on it, but Pivane raises his hand and lets it go.

“If the boy has a true vision,” Lev overhears Pivane tell Wil, “he will choose it over the lie.”

On the next day, there is an archery competition. Luckily for Lev, he took a liking to archery a few years back and placed silver in a citywide competition. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help him here. He takes last place.

On the third day, Lev falls and tweaks his wrist again. He has forgotten what clean feels like, and he’s covered with mosquito bites. He’s miserable and uncomfortable, and his head is pounding.

So why then does he find this to be the happiest week of his life?

Every night they build a fire, and Wil plays his guitar. It is the highlight of the day. So are the stories that Pivane tells: traditional folktales. Some are funny and some are strange. Lev likes to watch the kids around him lean close to the storyteller, their eyes wide with wonder.

On the fourth day, everyone is antsy. Lev isn’t sure if it’s the effects of not eating or a storm brewing in the mountains to the north. The kids are simmering at breakfast in the muggy stillness. When Ahote spills his weed drink on Lansa, the two boys fight with such fury it takes the combined might of Lev, Wil, and Pivane to separate them.

It doesn’t help that Lev feels like he’s being watched. He stares into the forest every time a bird erupts from a tree or a twig cracks. He knows it’s probably nothing, but all the uneasiness from his time as an AWOL still has him paranoid. His twitchiness spreads to the younger kids, till Pivane finally sends him off for a break.

At first it’s a relief to be alone in the small pup tent, but soon the deerskin walls press down on him and the smell of dirty socks drives him outside. He can hear the others washing the breakfast mugs in the clearing. Chin low, he sits cross-legged, ChanceFolk style, in the small thicket of tents, wishing the storm would finally break and get it over with.

“Lev?”

Looking up, he sees Kele fidgeting in front of him. Kele sits down, but he won’t look directly at Lev at first. When he finally does, Kele says, “I had my vision last night.”

Lev doesn’t know what to say. He wonders why Kele came to him rather than Pivane or Wil.

“So you saw your spirit-guide?” Kele seems stuck on what to say next, so Lev prompts him. “It wasn’t a pig, was it?”

“No . . .” Kele draws the word out. “It was a sparrow, like my name.”

Lev is struck by this. Seems right that the spirit-guide would mean something special to a kid, unless of course it’s to be a source of organ replacements.

“So what happened?”

“Something bad.” The boy whispers so quietly that Lev has to lean forward to hear him.

“What was bad?” All the fears that have been haunting him this morning return.

“I don’t know.” Kele looks at him, nervously crushing leaves to powder. “But I saw you leaving. You won’t, will you?”

Lev feels as if an arrow has hit him in the chest, and he can’t breathe. He tries to remember what Wil told him. The hunger and the sweating can cause hallucinations and strange dreams. Or maybe someone suggested to Kele that mahpees always leave, and so he dreamed it.

“I’m not leaving,” he says, and he’s reassuring himself just as much as Kele.

“In the vision you were running,” Kele tells him. “People wanted to hurt you . . . and you wanted to hurt them back.”