"Only if you call me Peez." The pair of them exchanged smiles that were not in Dov's extensive repertoire.
Soon thereafter they were riding along the highway in Sam's truck. Teddy Tumtum, retrieved from the carry-on bag in the rental car trunk, was pressed against the windshield singing Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer at the top of his stockinette lungs.
"You were the one who insisted on bringing him," Peez said to Sam. "Happy about it now?"
"I can take it," Sam replied, his jaw set in grim determination. "I keep telling myself that after everything else my people have endured at the hands of the White Man, an obnoxious stuffed bear is no biggie."
"Is it working?"
"No. Right now I'm ranking him somewhere between broken treaties and smallpox- infected blankets."
"Hey, I resent that!" Teddy Tumtum interrupted his droning song to voice his objection, then groused: "Damn. Now I lost my place. I'll have to start all over from the beginning. Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of— YEEE!"
Sam stopped the truck. "You really shouldn't have thrown him out the window, Peez."
"I know." Peez's head drooped in contrition. "But it just felt so good!"
It took her the better part of an hour to find the little bear again. After spending that much time out in the midday sun, the initial thrill of pitching him out the window was well and truly gone.
"There you are!" Peez panted when she finally laid hands on him once more. The little bear had been sprawled in the shade of a cactus plant. "Why didn't you say something to let me know where to find you? I tried invoking your homing hex, but it didn't work, for some reason." She gave him a suspicious look. "Did you disable it, Teddy Tumtum?"
"Oh, I'm sorry." Teddy Tumtum made an art of sarcastic payback. "I was under the impression that you didn't want to hear from me ever again. My goodness gracious me, wherever might I have gotten that idea? Oooh, could it have been something as trivial as being flung out the window of a speeding truck?!"
"Oh, calm down. You're stuffed. You bounce. The fall didn't hurt you."
"Maybe not my body." Teddy Tumtum sniveled and wiped invisible tears from his eyes. " 'Ooo went and bwoke my ickle heart. Bitch."
Peez laughed. "That's my Teddy Tumtum!" She gave him a hug and climbed back into Sam's truck.
"Found him?" Sam asked casually. "Way to go." He started up the truck again and drove on. Throughout the whole search-and-rescue operation, he had remained comfortably ensconced in the air-conditioned cab, letting Peez do all the work of finding the bear. Now it was time for a reckoning.
"Yes, I found him," Peez said angrily. "Not thanks to you, might I add."
"None expected. I wasn't the one who threw him out the window."
"Maybe not, but you've got to admit, you shared the benefit of it."
Sam shrugged. "I get a lot of that response from you city folk. First you do something I didn't ask for, maybe even something I never wanted, then you tell me I benefited from it so it's my duty to share the cost. But do you ever ask me if I think the results help me live my life more comfortably, or did they just help you advance your idea of how you think I'm supposed to be living?"
"Wow," said Teddy Tumtum. "That's an awful lot of resentment you're harboring just over tossing a teddy bear out of a truck."
"Friend, I've got resentment I've hardly used," Sam said. "The good news is, I don't think I'll ever bother using it. I've got better things to do."
"Like fleecing the woo-woos and wannabes of their wampum," the bear said. "We read the reports on your operation before we came here. Take one clutch of yuppies, stick 'em in the desert, hand them a rattle, a bottle of designer-label spring water, tell them that their true name is Squatting Iguana or Dances-With-Dot-Coms, and have them sign on the dotted line of any major credit card slip. Ka-ching! Money is the— YEEE!"
Peez looked accusingly at Sam. "Okay, this time you find him."
Sam pulled the truck over. "Sure you want him found?"
"Yes, I'm sure!"
"Find him, then."
"Hey, you were the one who—!"
Sam turned sharply and took Peez by the shoulders. "This isn't about finding that snide little scrap of fake fur. This is about finding something for yourself."
"A vision quest?" Peez smiled. "I don't think so. It's starting to get dark out there. Besides, do I look like a yuppie who wants to get spiritual enlightenment in just eight minutes a day?"
"Making fun of something you don't understand? I expected better of Edwina's daughter." Sam looked stern. "Don't be a fool, Peez. What I do isn't just about making a quick buck off gullible white-eyes. I could do that a lot faster and easier if I stuck to my fetish-bead business or started mass-producing medicine pouches. Do you even know why yuppies—people who've supposedly got everything money can buy—feel that they still need spirituality? After all, you can't take it to the bank, it won't help you get ahead in business, and it won't attract a trophy spouse."
Peez shook her head. "I don't know, but I do wonder. Truth is, when I started this whole journey of mine, it was all about just those kind of things: money, power, self- importance. Now ..." She bit her lip, unsure of how to go on.
"Now it's different," Sam concluded for her, his voice gentle. "Now it's about something more, isn't it?"
This time she nodded. "I used to think that what E. Godz, Inc. had to offer was just like those mass-produced medicine pouches you mentioned. It was a business, pure and simple. Now that I've gotten out there and seen some of the people involved, I know it's more than that. Even the most showy, splashy, fake-looking ceremony can provide something that people really seem to need."
"It's hard these days, living in the cities," Sam said. "Hard to stay in touch with nature, with the changing of the seasons, the great cycles; hard to appreciate something like a harvest festival of thanksgiving when you buy your food in a supermarket. No matter how much we try to ignore the seasons and the cycles and the forces of nature, we're still a part of them. We're children, Peez, and a child who turns away from his mother before he's able to stand on his own isn't going to get very far. That's why so many people are looking to the religions that put them back in touch with the earth. All religions do, in their own way. But some people can't seem to find what they need in the faiths they were taught as children. For them, religious rites became something you did once a week or sometimes only once a year. People change their hairstyles more often than that. The important thing isn't how they rediscover their spiritual side, just as long as they do it."
"They do it, you help them, and E. Godz, Inc. helps you." Peez looked thoughtful. "I was thinking about stepping out of the competition for company leadership. I was upset by all the hucksterism I saw, but now I know it's only surface glitter. The heart of what we do is sincere. Mother didn't just set up a cash cow; she saw what people needed, and she created the most efficient way to serve that need. I know all that, now. I don't know if I'm the right person to take over the job."
"Maybe that's what you should be searching for," Sam said, leaning across her to open the door on her side of the cab. "While you're looking for the bear."
"Multitasking?" Peez gave him a shy smile and got out of the truck. "Just one thing: If I don't come back by daybreak, check to see if I took a meeting with a rattler, okay?" With that, she trudged off into the desert.
The first streaks of pink, purple and gold were lighting the horizon when she returned, holding Teddy Tumtum. Her face was transformed with a deep serenity that Sam recognized at once.