Commitment Hour

by James Alan Gardner

  Why would Bonnakkut have been out there?

  Dorr said the First Warrior had been following her. Rashid thought her whole confession was a lie, but suppose it wasn’t.

  That only changed the question: why had Doit been heading for Zephram’s?

  I thought back to the days when I was fourteen, and she was forever lingering outside the house. Especially at times when she knew I would be heading to the marsh for practice.

  Suppose she wasn’t waiting for a glimpse of me, or to tag along and eavesdrop on my playing.

  Suppose she had been waiting for me to leave.

  And in the past few years, when I had been living with Cappie down by the waterfront, Dorr could visit Zephram almost any time. No one would notice, if the two of them were discreet.

  Dorr could move so quietly when she wanted to.

  When she was dying, she’d said, “Your father would never forgive me if I hurt you…your violinist’s hands.” And to Steck: “Take good care of him. You’ve always been…”

  You’ve always been what? Zephram’s true love?

  Had Dorr killed herself because she thought Zephram would leave her for Steck?

  I didn’t know; but I urgently needed to confront my foster father.

  Zephram sat at the table where we had breakfast. Tears dampened his cheeks.

  “You know about Dorr?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I was taking Waggett down to the square when I heard.”

  “Where’s Waggett now?”

  “Cappie was in the square too; I left him with her. He knew something was wrong. Maybe I was even crying, I don’t know. It scared him. So I thought it was better…”

  “Cappie will take care of him,” I said. “What about you?”

  He shrugged dully.

  “So you and Dorr…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “Yes. Me and Dorr.”

  Neither of us said anything for a while.

  “How long?” I asked.

  “Years,” he said. “Since before she Committed.” He gave a sad laugh. “It’s pathetic, isn’t it? An old man and a young woman.”

  “A young Neut.”

  “Stop right there, Fullin. I don’t want you sneering at Neuts. Not today.”

  I didn’t fight him. “Which of you started it?”

  “No one ever starts these things,” he said. “Dorr always liked talking to me about life in the South. Even as a young teenager, she probably intended to run away once she Committed: to get out of that house. By the time she was nineteen, she was coming here almost every day. We both pretended she was just picking my brains about being a merchant in Feliss City, but…then it went beyond that. Dorr was the first person in Tober Cove who actually wanted to hear the things I knew about business, and I was the only person who could speak three words to her without worrying what Hakoore would think.”

  “And what did Hakoore think?” I asked. “Did he know about you two?”

  “He knew. She made sure he knew. Dorr loved getting under her grandfather’s skin. And he wasn’t as upset as she thought he’d be. It’s easy to picture Hakoore as heartlessly rigid, but he lost his own daughter to madness, and when it came to his granddaughter…even as he lectured Dorr about ‘godless outsiders’ I think he was secretly pleased she wasn’t as lonely and isolated as her mother. Close to Commitment Day, he even suggested he might allow a marriage…”

  “Oh gods!” I groaned, “how brainless could he get?” I wanted to bury my face in my hands. “Accepting Dorr’s relationship with you? Suggesting you get married . . .”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Zephram protested.

  “Dorr didn’t want to get married!” I snapped at him. “She wanted to get out! Out of the cove, away from Hakoore. Marrying you would just be another tie to keep her here. It was a threat, not a concession. Hakoore practically held a knife to her throat and forced her to raise the stakes. To Commit Neut.”

  “No,” Zephram murmured. “Dorr did that to please me.”

  “To please you?” I repeated. “Don’t tell me you gave Dorr the happy story about your Neut friend down south! You couldn’t be that stupid…not after the trouble with Steck.”

  “I never talked to Dorr about Neuts,” Zephram replied. “Not before she Committed. But Dorr was five when Steck…made her choice. Dorr was old enough to remember some of what happened, and young enough to have it all confused. She got the idea…”

  He waved his hand as if groping for the right words.

  “That you had been Steck’s lover after she turned Neut?” I suggested. “That you liked Neuts?”

  Zephram ran his fingers through his hair; the hair was damp, soaked with sweat. He said, “Maybe I should have talked to her about Neuts before she Committed. But I wanted to stay clear of the topic—to avoid influencing Dorr like I influenced Steck. Once or twice, Dorr even brought the subject up…and I avoided it. It seemed like the right thing.”

  Sometimes there is no right thing, I thought to myself. Aloud, I said, “And when she Committed Neut?”

  “I stayed with her,” my father replied. “Of course I did. She was the same person. And I wasn’t about to abandon her when she…for my sake…”

  “Okay, sure.” I didn’t want to hurt him by pursuing my thoughts aloud, but I wondered about Dorr. Had she really thought Zephram would prefer her as Neut? Or had she Committed Neut to horrify her grandfather, then invented a second story to tell Zephram? Maybe she was afraid Zephram would turn her away unless he thought it was his own fault.

  No way to know. Dorr was dead. Poor cryptic Dorr, who spent twenty-five years trying to do something crazy enough to break herself free of her grandfather.

  I suppose it wasn’t coincidence she had fallen in love with a man the same age as Hakoore.

  “So about Dorr and Bonnakkut,” I said. “Did she really kill him?”

  Zephram nodded.

  “Do you know that for sure?” I asked. “Rashid thinks her confession doesn’t make sense.”

  “He’s right; her confession was a lie. But she did kill him. I was there.”

  “What happened?”

  He told me the story with his eyes closed, as if he was seeing it all in his mind…or perhaps because he didn’t want to look at me or the rest of the world for a while.

  Everything had started, of course, at the gathering where Tober Cove welcomed Rashid. Zephram had sat on the grass with Waggett in his lap, both of them calm and content in the early morning sunshine. The day ahead would be so pleasant—sending me off with Mistress Gull at noon, then feasting cheerfully with the adults of the village until the children returned at nightfall. Zephram could meet a Spark Lord, spend time with Dorr…

  Then Rashid’s Bozzle appeared on the Council Hall steps.

  The long-lost Steck had returned.

  As soon as the gathering broke up, Zephram headed for his house—running away, really, though Steck would know where to find him. Since he was carrying Waggett, and since he was over sixty, Zephram only got partway home before Steck caught up with him…on that path through the woods where everything happened.

  They talked. Awkwardly. About each other. About me.

  Then Bonnakkut arrived, gun in hand. He had kept an eye on Steck, thinking the time might come when she strayed from the protection of Rashid’s “force field.” Our First Warrior hadn’t seen Steck sneak out the side of the Council Hall, but he guessed where she would go: to find her old lover. (Bonnakkut was five when Steck was banished; like Dorr, he remembered. I suppose the day of Steck’s exile was the high point in Bonnakkut’s life: a Neut in the village and a chance to throw stones.)

  If Bonnakkut had pulled the trigger as soon as he arrived, Steck would have died. Our proud First Warrior would have dragged her corpse back by the hair and proclaimed his triumph from the Council Hall steps. But fortunately for my mother, Bonnakkut couldn’t resist the chance to gloat while holding Steck and Zephram at gunpoint.

  Enter Dorr.

&nb
sp; How did Dorr feel, now that Zephram’s old lover had returned? Zephram couldn’t tell me. “She didn’t seem upset,” he said. “It was almost as if she was liberated. As if she could pass me to Steck and start her own life.”

  I thought about Dorr as I had seen her when I went to fetch Hakoore for last rites. Dorr trying to restyle her hair. Kissing me twice out of sheer mischief. If she believed she was free of Zephram, her last tie to Tober Cove finally cut…but maybe it was just giddiness after the murder—and before the suicide she was already contemplating.

  But that came later in the morning. Before the murder, Dorr was simply walking through the woods because she wanted to visit Zephram—presumably to talk with him about Steck’s return. She must have heard Bonnakkut’s taunts and threats while still some distance away. Quietly, she stole forward until she could see everything: the gun…my father and Steck in danger of being shot…

  Dorr drew her knife and used it. Bonnakkut had his back to her; he was dead before he knew she was there.

  “And then she ran off,” Zephram said. “She called to Steck and me, ‘Be happy together,’ and ran into the woods. I thought she might be heading down-peninsula, just like that. But apparently she decided she had to invent a story; she decided she had to protect me.” He shook his head. “I never understood her, Fullin. Not really. I don’t know why she stayed with me, and I don’t know why she left.”

  He bowed his head and covered his eyes.

  How do you comfort your father?

  Pat his shoulder? Murmur sympathetic words? Hold him till he stops crying?

  Of all the people in the universe, your father is the one person you can’t touch when he grieves.

  I leaned against the kitchen counter, not knowing what to do with my hands.

  Eventually he spoke again, no more than a whisper. “It’s a pity Dorr ran away—if we all just walked straight to the center of town and announced that Dorr had killed Bonnakkut to protect Steck and me…maybe Father Ash and Mother Dust would have declared the killing justifiable. Probably the truth about Dorr and me would have come out, and maybe about Dorr and Steck both being Neuts. I don’t know. Without Dorr there, Steck and I couldn’t make the decision for her. We just tried to confuse things, so no one could piece together a clear interpretation. Steck stabbed Bonnakkut a few more times in the belly. I took his gun…”

  “What did you do with it?” I asked.

  “It’s here. In the root cellar.”

  “You have to get rid of it.”

  “I know,” he nodded. “Tonight I’ll throw it into the lake.”

  “And what if someone sees you? What if Rashid finds out about you and Dorr before then and comes to search the house?”

  “How would he find out?”

  “Hakoore knows you and Dorr were lovers,” I said. “That means Leeta too. Maybe other people—Tobers know a lot about each other’s business. If Rashid wanders around the feast this afternoon, asking questions…”

  “So what should I do?”

  “Give me the gun. I’ll get rid of it.”

  He looked at me with his reddened eyes. “You wouldn’t keep it for yourself, would you, Fullin?”

  “No,” I snapped, “and I’m not going to shoot anyone either, if that’s what bothers you. Just get the gun.”

  Stiffly, he forced himself out of the chair and toward the cellar steps. When I was sure he was steady enough to be left alone, I hurried to my old room at the back of the house. There, laid proudly on my bed, was my Chicken Box.

  I’ve already mentioned that everyone going to Commit at Birds Home carries a chicken foot, symbolizing the Patriarch’s Hand. In recent years (as the cove succumbed to Hakoore’s “materialism”), the fashion had sprung up for parents to give their children gold-painted boxes reminiscent of the box that contained the real hand. The parents also filled the box with presents, sometimes so many gifts they could barely fit in the requisite chicken foot Supposedly, the presents went to Birds Home for “blessing” by the gods, but really they were just trotted out so neighbors could see the display of wealth.

  Zephram had known what was expected of him as father of a Committing child—a box chocked with trinkets that must have been purchased down-peninsula. I didn’t even look at them as I tossed them out on my bed; I was just glad the box was big enough to hold a Beretta.

  By the time Zephram returned from the cellar, I had brought the box to the kitchen table. “You’re going to take the gun to Birds Home?” he asked.

  I nodded. “My offering.” It was tradition to leave something at Birds Home as an offering to the gods. Usually people left a token of the soul they were giving up. If you were Committing female, you might leave your spear to show that you were setting aside male ways, or if you were going male, you might give a sample of your last menstrual blood. “I don’t know what it means to give the gods a gun,” I told Zephram, “but it will be safer with them than with anyone here.”

  “And you’ll make sure no one looks in the box before you get to Birds Home?”

  “People will wonder what extravagant Southern gifts you bought me,” I told him, “but there’s no rule I have to show them.”

  “Well, then…” He held the pistol cradled in both hands, as if it was as heavy and precious as gold. Last night, I’d only seen the gun by starlight; now, with sun streaming through the kitchen windows, the weapon gleamed with sly eagerness. We stared at it for a moment, then Zephram sighed. “I’ve put the safety on,” he said, “so it won’t go off accidentally. You should make sure it’s still on before you take it out of the box. Do you want me to show you how?”

  “I know all about the safety,” I answered. “Steck explained everything to Bonnakkut last night; I watched too. But how do you know anything about guns?”

  “A merchant friend of mine was a collector. He had nearly a hundred OldTech firearms of various types…only two of which were preserved well enough to fire. What he wouldn’t give for a gun like this….” Zephram shook his head. “But then, he’s probably dead. It’s been twenty years. Twenty years since I’ve seen anyone I used to know down south.”

  I looked at him: an old man, tired to the bone. Tober Cove had been hard on him. He’d been trapped up here by snow that first winter, and frozen in place ever since.

  “Rashid and Steck will be leaving in a day or so,” I said. “Maybe you’d like to go south with them.”

  “Steck told me she’s with Rashid now.”

  “Even so…you wouldn’t have to worry about bandits if you traveled with a Spark Lord, and maybe you could use some time away from the cove.”

  “I know you, Fullin,” he said with a weak smile.

  “You just want to claim my house for your own.”

  I smiled back. “That’s it exactly. Never mind that you deserve a vacation after putting up with me for twenty years.”

  “Well,” he said. “Well.” He looked around the kitchen with the air of a man who isn’t trying to see anything. “If I decided to go south,” he murmured, “I’d just go. Throw some stuff in the wagon, hitch up the horses, and leave. Pick a sunny afternoon when the sky was clear and I could make a good start before nightfall.” He took a deep breath. “Best choice would be a big summer holiday when Tober farmers weren’t working their fields; that way, no one would see me on the road. Just go, with no good-byes.”

  He looked at me with a question in his eyes.

  I nodded. “Sure. That’d be nice. No good-byes.”

  After a while, my father set the Beretta carefully into the box. I had already put in a towel as padding, so the gun wouldn’t slide around. Zephram picked up the chicken foot lying on the table and moved to put it into the box too; but I stopped him. “Keep it,” I said. “A Commitment Day present for you.”

  “Don’t you have to take it to Birds Home?”

  “No one checks,” I said, “and the gods will understand.”

  “So, a Commitment Day present,” he repeated. “You want me to have a symbol of
the Patriarch?”

  “It’s the only thing I have to give,” I told him. “Everything else, you bought me.”

  He smiled. “I bought you the chicken foot too.” But he took it and patted my hand.

  NINETEEN

  A Pair of Fleas for Mistress Gull

  No one in the town square knew how to behave.

  There were two black barrels under Little Oak now, and two bodies on the bier—Dorr and Bonnakkut, side by side but arranged head to toe (partly for the sake of decency, and partly because they fit together better that way on the bier’s narrow surface). Hakoore and Veen stood mutely beside one barrel while Kenna and Ivis stood beside the other. Almost no one had thought to bring two cups with them from home; people had to decide which corpse to toast now, promising to come back for a second toast when they got another cup.

  On the other hand, it was Commitment Day—folks had looked forward to this for months. Every kitchen swam with the smells of food for the afternoon feast: pork roasts, crayfish chowder, and wild blueberry pie. Little boys and girls all sported new Blessing outfits made specially for the day…or at least new decorations on old clothes, embroidered or smocked by lamplight over the past few weeks. The day before, a dozen people had asked me, “Fullin, you’ll play a few tunes before you go, won’t you? Good dance tunes?” And I had said yes, because I never imagined Bonnakkut would get killed and Dorr take her own life.

  Tober Cove wanted to sing and dance. As I made my way through the square (my fiddle case under one arm and Chicken Box under the other), I felt longing eyes stare at the violin. A child’s voice in the crowd piped up, “Oooo, is he going to play?” That brought a chorus of adult shushes; there’d be no jigs or reels in front of the mourners.

  And yet…

  It was hard for people to contain themselves. The youngest were puddly with excitement that soon they’d be flying over Mother Lake…and soon too they’d wear another body, start fresh again, find out what had happened to their brother or sister selves over the year. As I passed two teenaged boys, I heard one whisper to another, “I just know I’m going to have breasts. They were starting to come last year. I’m going to have great breasts now, perfect ones, and I swear I’ll go into the woods and rub my nipples for hours!”