Tails of the Apocalypse Page 2

  As long as he could still sniff like that, I wasn’t going anywhere. My escape plan was set, but I was staying right here until my friend passed on to the next life, or wherever we go when we die. Yes, I was risking everything by staying, but after a lifetime of faithful service—a lifetime of keeping me from being sold to the slavers—I owed him that much.

  “You should put a collar on that dog.” Dimah’s voice was husky with sleep. She pressed herself against my back and slipped a hand into my robe. Her fingers were cold against my skin and I shivered.

  “Never. Collars are for animals.”

  I could feel her face pouting against my shoulder blade. “He’s a dog,” she said.

  “He’s my friend.” I pulled her hand out of my robe, and tightened the tie around my waist. Maybe I was a bit short with her, but this was not the first time we’d had this conversation.

  “I don’t understand, Polluk.”

  In truth, that was the crux of the problem: she really didn’t understand. For her and the rest of the clans, if you wore a collar you were one of two things: a slave or a meal—sometimes you were both. The day that Shadow saved my life, I took off his collar and vowed I would never put it back on him again. I’d kept that promise.

  I took Dimah’s hands in mine and faced her. “My little raincloud.” I used my most intimate Finder voice when I spoke her pet name. “It’s a complicated matter for Finders.” That was the go-to answer for anything a Finder didn’t want to talk about. No one wanted to mess with the clan’s water source, so most of the time that little deflection worked with small groups of people. Used in a one-on-one setting, it was hit or miss. On Dimah, my lover for nearly two years, my success rate for the strategy was one in ten.

  She adjusted her robe in a way that let me know she was naked underneath. “You love that dog more than you love me.” She turned, swinging her hips as she made her way back into the tent. “I’m going back to bed.”

  Shadow, his tour of the perimeter completed, snuffled at my knee. I dropped down to put my arm around him. “She’s right,” I whispered into the ears that hung down like velvet. “I do love you more.”

  * * *

  When I say Shadow entered my life at exactly the right time, I mean exactly. My Gift began to fail me before I was thirty years old. When we were in training, we were told that the Gift was like a switch, and it was either on or off. My experience was that the Gift was more like a muscle, something that peaked in performance and then declined with age.

  When I was in my prime, I was the best Water Finder anywhere in the known world. But being the best Finder is not just about finding pockets of moisture under the dirt; it’s about showmanship. You have to inject a little tension into the performance, make them think that you might not find anything this time. Make them think that they might have to move camp again.

  They never really taught us that in training. The course of instruction at the Finder’s Temple was hocus-pocus bullshit about respecting the Gift, giving thanks to the Great Ocean in the sky, and reading the texts about the Great Water Hold, a cache of water so large it could re-green the whole world.

  They showed us pictures—color pictures—of ordinary people jumping into open pools of water. Of water sloshing onto rocks and nobody there to lap it up. The pictures were printed on ancient, flimsy paper that crinkled when you held it, not like the hides or thick pages of pressed fiber we write on these days.

  As boys, we Finders-in-training soaked up the Water Scriptures and the religious instruction. After all, we were going out to save the world, to bring life to the clans.

  All that idealism ended when we did our first apprenticeship. The Finders—the best ones, anyway—were really just con men with a side order of talent. They knew how to put on the kind of show that made the clans pay top price for their services: the best food, the best tent, the best companions to satisfy whatever nighttime needs they had.

  My first master was Ghadir, a matronly woman who liked to hint to the clan leaders that the source of her Gift was her enormous breasts. She usually dropped that piece of information as she leaned forward to pick something up, giving Mr. Clan Leader an eyeful of milky-white cleavage. Although the clans were pretty evenly split between male and female leaders, when I was with Ghadir, we never played once in a matriarchal clan.

  “Forget what they told you in training, kid,” Ghadir said in a rare moment of honesty. “Find your shtick and make it work for you. They’ve got to love you or you won’t be successful in this business.”

  “Shtick? I don’t understand.” I was twelve.

  Ghadir hefted her boobs in front of my face. I blushed and turned away. She grabbed my chin, twisting my head back to face her. “Look at me when I talk to you, kid. They don’t remember me, they remember these.” She squished her breasts together. “This is my thing, my shtick. I know one guy who does animal noises, another who only searches for water by walking on his hands. That’s their thing. I don’t even know their names anymore, I only know what they do.”

  She patted my cheek. “Find your shtick, kid. People with shtick get paid.”

  I stayed with Ghadir for two years, two good years. I was a decent Finder in a technical sense—better than average at finding water, actually—but I had no showmanship. There was nothing to set me apart from the other Finders. Not that I didn’t try. I juggled, I sang, I did cartwheels in the dirt, but nothing worked. I got polite clapping and a few smiles, but I always needed Ghadir to come in to close the deal with the clan leaders.

  My shtick found me when a small dog wandered into one of my shows. He was nothing but a pup, maybe twelve weeks old and small for his age. I found out later that the only reason Shadow hadn’t been slaughtered yet was that he was the runt of the litter and the butcher wanted to put a few more pounds on him before the dog went under the knife.

  * * *

  When a Finder visits a clan, it’s a big event, probably the most excitement the clan has seen in months. Usually the clan leaders give their people the afternoon off so they can see the show, and the day Shadow found me was no exception. Most of the clans arranged their tents such that there was a clear oval in the center of the village. That’s where we performed. This time there was a decent-sized crowd of maybe a hundred people or so. Ghadir had done the scouting, and they’d been without a Finder for months. Water was beyond scarce; they needed a new Finder now.

  “You close this deal, kid,” Ghadir said. “It’s time you earned your keep.”

  So there I was: smiling, doing cartwheels, making small talk with the crowd, trying to build some anticipation for the moment of the Find. But in reality, I was dying. Ghadir was shifting in her seat. I knew that look: I had about a minute to make some magic happen before she took over.

  And then Shadow walked in.

  He’d pushed his way through the outer ring of children into the performance oval. His squat, black body looked like it belonged to a larger dog that had been cut off at the knees. Shadow sat facing me, and he frowned as if he’d found my performance lacking. A collar of heavy steel had worn the fur off the back of his neck.

  I put my hands on my hips and looked down at him. “And who might you be?”

  The dog laid down and put his paw over his eyes. The children erupted with laughter. I decided to milk the opportunity. I knelt in the dirt before him. “Oh come now, I’m not that scary.”

  He peeked out from behind the paw, then covered his eyes again. Another burst of laughter, this time deepened by some grown-up voices.

  “Hmmm.” I stroked my chin and stood back up. Shadow peered up at me with a “what’s next?” look on his face.

  I cocked my head; he mimicked me.

  I scratched my head like I was thinking; Shadow swiped at his ear with a paw.

  “What say we go find some water, little dog?” I asked loud enough for the crowd to hear. Shadow jumped up and barked. The crowd clapped. Ghadir clapped as well, and winked at me.

  I spread out my arms p
arallel with the earth, slowly turning my body clockwise, chanting the words of the Finder’s Prayer:

  Mother Earth, the Source of all,

  From your bosom flows Life.

  I call on you to show me the way.

  Show me Life.

  I closed my eyes, and let the magic happen.

  The trick to Finding is not the prayer or the way you hold your hands—it’s not thinking. You have to let it happen. I don’t find the water, I let the water find me. Nothing good comes from inserting your brain into that process.

  It usually started with a tickle under one of my feet. I zeroed in on the right direction until the sensation was equally shared by both feet, then I walked forward, feeling the energy crawl up my legs as we got closer to the source. I opened my eyes to see the little black dog trotting along ahead of me, his nose to the ground. We reached the Find together and I turned to the crowd. “May you drink from the blessings of the Mother.”

  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, bu
t 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.

  Dimah shifted her hips and slipped a soft thigh between my knees. I smiled at the ceiling. As an apprentice Finder, it was easy to get lost in the sheer volume of sexual opportunities, but Ghadir had trained me well. “They don’t want you, they don’t even want a Finder. They want their lives to change,” she’d said. “Never promise anything, and never take one with you. Never.”

  A small minority of companions wanted something else from their Finder: a baby. Although research had shown—back when there was enough infrastructure to have something like research—that the Gift was not a genetic trait, the hope remained. Bearing a child with the Gift was like winning the lottery for the parents. When they presented themselves at the Temple of the Water Finders, the child was taken and the parents were invited into a special Water Hold community to live out their days as servants in the temple. Life as a servant might not sound so good, but there’s no water rationing in the temple. Just the opposite, in fact: there’s all the water you could possibly want for the rest of your life.

  Dimah lifted her head and rested the point of her chin on my chest. Her smoky eyes looked directly into mine. “Do you love me?” she asked, her breath warm on my cheek.