Shadow barked.
The drillers hit water quickly, and that night there was a feast in our honor. It was customary for the clan leader to offer the Finder a gift at the feast. The bigger the Find, the better the gift. Usually, it was women or gold or a house to stay in for a few months. Since this was my first solo Find, Ghadir arranged for the clan leader to offer the gift to me.
“Polluk,” he called after we’d eaten and drunk so much water that our bellies sloshed when we moved. “You have given much to my clan. Tell me what you desire and it’s yours.”
The girls crowded close to where we sat together. Becoming the consort of a Finder was one of the few ways to break from a clan, and I could sense their eagerness. But I had other plans. I scooped up Shadow.
“I want this dog,” I said.
The clan leader’s brow wrinkled. “But we just ate. Are you still hungry?”
“I don’t want to eat the dog, I want to keep it—as a friend.”
The scowl sank into his forehead. This was a man who would gladly let me sleep with his daughter but balked at giving a water ration to a dog he wouldn’t be able to eat later. I matched his frown.
“You said I could have anything I wanted.”
The clan leader shrugged and the tension was broken. “So I did. He’s yours, Finder.”
The girls fell back from the fire, but I hardly noticed. “Good,” I said. “Now, remove his collar.”
We stayed with Ghadir another five years. Or rather, Ghadir stayed with us for another five years. Until she was taken.
She gave Shadow and me a good life and a chance to perfect our act. She called Shadow my shtick, but there were days when I felt maybe we had the order of things wrong. Shadow was the one who knew how to work a crowd; I just acted as his straight man. As a pet instead of a food source, he was a new experience for the clan audiences. He’d work his magic on the children first, then wheedle his way into the hearts of single women, then mothers. The men came along for free after that.
Even better, we found water together. Every time.
Ghadir, on the other hand, began to struggle. We had a disastrous show in the southwest, where she led the customer clans to two empty Finds. Had Shadow and I not been there, she would’ve gone to the slavers that day.
We stepped in when she was floundering and located a small Find. Then we piled back into the wagon and headed out into the desert as fast as we could. We even skipped the feast, telling the clan leader that we had an urgent call three days’ travel to the east.
I drove with Shadow perched on the seat beside me. Ghadir stared out the window. The low hum of the wagon’s electric motor was the only sound for a long time. Then I heard a whimper from Ghadir. Her shoulders were shaking, and she pressed her forehead against the glass.
I let the wagon coast to a stop. “Ghadir? What’s the matter?” I caught my breath when she turned toward me. My mentor was crying. I reached out to touch her cheek. Giving up water like that was so rare, I’d only seen it twice before in my life. Both times were over the death of a child.
“You had a bad day, Ghadir. That’s all.”
She shook her head. “It’s gone,” she whispered. “My Gift.”
“No.”
“I’m scared, Polluk.” Shadow put his paws on her chest and licked the tears off her cheeks. She made no move to stop him.
“Well… you’ll just retire then, right?”
Ghadir looked at me. Then she laughed, a long, lusty cackle that grated on my ears. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Of course, I do.” I put the wagon in gear and concentrated on driving. Finders who retired were taken in by the clans as breeders, trying to pass on the Finder gene to the next generation. They lived out their final days happy. A chosen few went off to search for the Great Water Hold. They’d taught us that in training. But I’d visited dozens of clans in the last five years and had never seen a retired Finder. Ever.
“What happens?” I asked finally.
“If—when—a clan catches a Finder who’s lost her gift, they sell her to the nearest slaver. If you’ve got enough money and advance notice, you can try to bribe your way into a Hold.” A few of the great American cities had secure water supplies and, therefore, no need of Finders. We called them Water Holds, or just Holds for short. As Finders, we avoided the Holds at all costs. Our place was with the clans in the open desert, where we were needed—and could get paid.
“What about the Great Water Hold?”
She barked a laugh. “It’s a myth, Polluk. Just like so much other nonsense they teach you in training.” The dirt in this part of the country was ruddy, and she watched the landscape glow in the afternoon sunlight. “Still, some Finders do go after it. No one’s ever returned, though.”
“Let’s do it,” I said. “Let’s go after the Great Hold—just the three of us.”
“You’re too young to die following a dream, kid. I’ll be fine.” The reddish light from outside touched her cheeks.
“We’ll protect you, right, Shadow? We’ll run the Finds and you can stay with us.”
Ghadir pulled Shadow onto her lap. He snuggled his head into her bosom and closed his eyes.
“Sure you will, kid.”
I helped Shadow navigate the steps into the hut I shared with Dimah. Tired from his morning constitutional, he collapsed on his pallet and was asleep in a few seconds. I watched until his paws began to twitch in the throes of a dream. His nose wrinkled at some imaginary scent.
I could see daily declines in his health now. My friend had days left in this world, maybe a fortnight at the outside. My self-preservation instinct said to leave, or if I couldn’t do that, ease his passing from this world—and then flee. Every day, every hour, I stayed here increased my chances of being found out for what I was: a Finder with no Gift.
I was playing with my freedom and I knew it. The last Find we’d done for this clan was over three months ago. It was a good water source, but my best Find ever had only lasted four months. Indeed, as Finders, we sought out smaller pockets of moisture to make sure the clans needed our services on a regular basis. I’d known this last Find needed to last as long as possible.
Over the last month, I’d quietly restocked my wagon with supplies and charged its batteries with the solar array. I smiled down at Shadow; I was ready to go as soon as my friend released me from this place.
“Polluk?” Dimah called to me from the bedroom. “Leave that stupid dog be and come back to bed.”
I stripped off my robe and slid between the sheets. Dimah pressed her water-fat flesh against me, still warm and funky with sleep. She crowded her dark curls into my cheek and kissed the hollow of my collarbone. I stroked the length of her back, resting my hand on the dimples at the base of her spine just above the swell of her buttocks.
I’d been with this clan for nearly two years—an eternity in the career of a Finder—and Dimah had been my woman since the first week of my tenure. We fit together. She was older; not as old as me, but well beyond the normal age that Finders sought in companions. Early in our relationship she’d let on that she was widowed, but turned stony when I tried to find out more details.
“Don’t ask me about my past, and I won’t ask about yours,” she’d told me. I dropped the topic.
As the weeks, then months passed, Dimah lost the gaunt look that came with scant clan water rations. Under my more-generous Finder rations, she grew more beautiful. Her features filled out, she grew softer and more curvaceous, and a sort of love developed between us. Is there such a thing as love without trust? Whatever we had, the relationship worked for us.