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"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.

"I see you found what you were looking for," he said softly.

Peez got into the cab without a word. Even Teddy Tumtum was silent. Sam started the truck and drove east. As they rolled down the road, he gave her a searching look. "You're all right? Cold? Want coffee? I know a place—"

"The airport, please," Peez said. Her eyes were fixed on something beyond the realm of ordinary sight. "I need to book an earlier flight to New Orleans." She turned to look at him. "It was there, Sam. It was there inside me all along. I just had to find the time and the silence before I could find the answer."

"Care to share it?"

"It's me, Sam. I'm the answer. My brother shouldn't be the head of E. Godz, Inc., but not because we don't get along or because I used to resent him or anything like that. The only reason he shouldn't guide E. Godz, Inc. is because I should. I know what the company is really about, and I've seen the best path for it to take." She blushed suddenly and added: "Wow, does that sound egotistical or what?"

"Depends." Sam regarded her with fatherly pride. "Why don't you ask the bear? He's usually got all the answers. Hey, you! Bear! How come you're so quiet all of a sudden? You have a vision, too?"

"No," Teddy Tumtum replied cautiously. "But I think I got a scorpion up my— YEEE!"

"I couldn't help it," Peez said apologetically as Sam stopped the truck for the third time. "I hate scorpions."

Chapter Fourteen

No one was waiting at Chicago's O'Hare Airport to meet Dov. That was annoying. The last he'd heard, he was supposed to be picked up at Baggage by someone named William Montrose who would be easily identifiable because he'd be holding up a sign with Dov's name on it.

There were plenty of people with signs waiting near Baggage, but not one of the signs said dov godz or any variation thereof.

"I don't like the smell of this," Dov muttered down the front of his shirt.

"You should try the smell in here," Ammi replied. "Man, if you can't shower twice a day while you're traveling, would you at least consider shaving your chest? I know we've been through this before, but come on, man, it's a jungle in here! One where a whole lot of tigers have been wrestling in dead—"

"Shut up." Dov whipped out his cell phone and fired off a ring in the direction of the Temple of Seshat-by-the-Shore. He wrapped an insulating spell around it so that it would cause the phone on the receiving end of the call to ring at the decibel level of a Heavy Metal band. The selfsame spell would also make Dov's summons shoot straight through any call-waiting or call-screening devices like a bullet through butter.