"You and my mother were—?" Dov couldn't believe it.
"Back when she was maybe eighteen, nineteen, around then. Why? Shocked? Scandalized? Grossed out? What?"
"Hey, I don't care if you and my mother slept together or not," Dov protested. "It's just that you don't look anywhere near old enough to have known her back then."
Sam picked up one of his black braids. "Hair dye. Better living through chemistry. And once my business got going I had more than enough cash to buy me my own private plastic surgeon, if I wanted, plus a carload of retin-A."
"Then why didn't you do anything about your teeth?"
Sam smiled extra wide on purpose. "Because my spirit guide Old Man Coyote told me that if I tried to make my mouth look as young as the rest of me, he'd make sure that all the words that came out of it were young too. Young and foolish. Gotta listen to your spirit guide, kid. Bad medicine if you don't pay heed."
Dov grabbed Ammi from Sam's hand. "If you're quite through yanking my chain?" he inquired frostily.
The older man clicked his tongue. "I can tell you're not gonna listen to me. Too bad. I expected more from Edwina's boy. Oh well, nothing to be done about it. Come on. I've kept the Seekers waiting long enough." He turned and started off for the cluster of brown domes again.
"Now just wait one minute!" Dov objected. "I think I'm entitled to know what's going on here."
"No, you're not," Sam said, never breaking stride. "Edwina always saw, always listened. Taught me to do the same. I'm not gonna tell you another word about who I am and what I do. You'll only hear the sounds my words make, but you won't understand a damn thing. If you're your mother's son, you'll catch on quick enough. If not, no charge."
"No charge? No charge for what?" Dov demanded, scampering after Sam.
By this time they were within a stone's throw of the brown domes. It was flat land, but tough going. The ground underfoot was thickly littered with at least two score of the same kind of bottle that Dov had slipped on before. Other detritis cluttered the earth: empty energy bar wrappers, used tissues and paper towels, toothpaste-stained twigs and one lonely, tapped-out tube of hemorrhoid cream. As Dov approached, he noted that the domes, which he had initially believed to be made out of hide, were actually cheap tents, their ripstop material painted to imitate leather. They were set up in a ring around a circle of cleared, beaten ground. All of the rubbish he'd been dodging was kept to the outer perimeter of the tent ring.
Out of sight, out of mind, he thought.
Sam strode into the very center of the ring and cupped his hands to his mouth. Throwing his head back, he let loose a series of yips and yowls that any self-respecting coyote might envy. Immediately the door flaps of the brown tents stirred and a chorus of random animal noises streamed out in response. Grunts and bellows, hisses and squawks, meows and chitterings and even a few pathetic squeaks broke the silence of the desert. Then, from inside one of the tents, someone began to beat rhythmically on a drum.
"Gerald! Stop that, you idiot!" a very strident female voice overwhelmed the menagerie and cut the drumming off cold. "You don't do that until later, when Master Turkey Feather calls us into the circle and tells us it's okay. Jesus, are you actively trying to embarrass me?"
"Sorry, Pookie," came the chastened murmur.
Sam gave Dov a look of intense amusement, then whisked his face clean of all trace of levity. Looking grave and stoic, he sat down crosslegged in the middle of the circle and began to sing. The melody was almost nonexistent, nasal and repetitive, but the words were in pure English, a summons for all Seekers to emerge into the Light of Truth and walk the Path of Dreams that would take the Truly Worthy to the very Heart and Soul of the Great Eagle's Egg of Life. (It wasn't often you could hear spoken words being capitalized but Sam made it so.)
One by one, the tent flaps lifted and the inhabitants crawled out into the sunlight, blinking like moles. There were ten of them, all told. Most walked upright, but one platinum blond woman chose to hop along on all fours like a bunny rabbit while one of the men kept his arms stretched out while he swooped in a looping pattern around the outside of the circle, like a little boy pretending to be a jet plane. All regarded Dov with suspicion and jealousy.
"Who is this?" one woman wanted to know. She looked like a Barbie doll that had been left out in a sandstorm. "I've been camping out here for two whole days, and I still haven't been contacted by my spirit guide, which I think is all Mimsy's fault, by the way, because she went and hogged the spirit of White Buffalo when it showed up, even though it was obviously supposed to be mine, and if this guy can just come waltzing in here and join up on the Vision Quest at the last frickin' minute like he was boarding the A train, for God's sake, then my aura is gonna be entirely thrown out of whack and I want a refund!"
"The great spirit guide White Buffalo says to tell you that Courtney speaks with forked tongue," another woman tranquilly told Sam. She was built on the same model as the first whiner—a toned, tanned, and tucked physique enhanced by strategic lumps and bumps of silicon, saline, and collagen. "The great spirit guide White Buffalo also says that if Courtney can't remember that my name is no longer Mimsy but Flower-in-the- Crannied-Wall, then it's no damn wonder she can't get a spirit guide of her own."
"Oh yeah? Well if you ask me, the only spirit guide that should've shown up to claim you is a double-dyed bitch," Courtney sniped. "You've got no right to White Buffalo and no right to that name! If anyone should be Flower-in-the-Crannied-Wall, it's me!"
"How would you like my boot so far up your Crannied Wall that you sneeze shoelaces for a week?" Mimsy countered. Her self-satisfied serenity had blown away like a tumbleweed and she was ready to rumble. This was serious. The woman doing the bunny hop paused, the swooping man stood stock still, the other Seekers froze on point like a pack of bird dogs, eager to watch a good old-fashioned catfight. Only Sam looked worried.
I'll bet, Dov thought. Now I see how he's been pulling in the serious money all these years. This is much bigger than the fetish bead market: made-to-order Vision Quests for the financially affluent and spiritually destitute. Sure, take them out into the desert, burn some herbs, chant your grocery list at them, have them thump on some drums, and make them go on a fast until they get their Vision. How long do you think these overgrown spoiled brats would go without food before they start seeing things? Or imagining that they do.
Only trouble is, this fight isn't imaginary, and if one of these two Minnehaha wannabes gets hurt, she'll hire Big Chief Sues-With-a-Vengeance and hold the company responsible.
Dov had always had a keen nose for Brownie Point Earning opportunities. The only reason he'd managed to finish college was his ability to ingratiate himself with his professors while all the other suckers were burning brain cells by actually studying. He figured that if he could defuse the impending Mimsy-Courtney blowup, he'd be in good with Sam, which meant Sam's considerable financial clout would be backing him when it came time for the corporate showdown with Peez.