American Gods

by Neil Gaiman

This review summary is going to be slightly awkward, due to being detailed, since this is going to be a ‘one and done’, so any conversation mentioned, will be noted in the 3rd person and the more annoying, without quotation, and very lightly commented after certain scenes in this version, due to this pretty much being straight from the text; definitely skimmable, and an unusually longer review concluding, since, doesn’t it suit the context of the author at this point?

If wanting a deeper view during this reading, scroll to the bottom and look out for certain scenes, which I’ve listed within the review and correlating thoughts to characters actions which Gaiman apparently has also become taken with since the early ‘90s, a link to an article, also provided below.

Gaiman’s introduction for the 10th anniversary edition tells of moving to the U.S. in 1992 and wanted to describe it along with unrelated ideas of coin tricks, 2 men meeting on a plane and a car on ice. He got the idea for the novel during a stopover in Iceland, titling a letter to his editor as ‘American Gods’ after seeing a tourist diorama of the travels of Leif Erickson, Gaiman thinking he’d come up with a better title. When his editor provided a mock-up of the book cover with title, it looked like it would be the 1 to stick, it intimidating having the cover before story. So he travels the country and wrote the story, doing his best to only write of places he’d been.

His goal was to write 2000 words per day, but was happy with a grand. The goal was to create a long, odd, meandering novel about parts of the U.S. not mentioned in entertainment. His editor was concerned it was too long, so he trimmed it, and believes she’d been it for how well it sold and won awards in different genres, not fitting into one box. 1st though, it required to be published, Gaiman starting a blog about the process and continuing into 2010 when this intro was written.

When he’d gone on a book tour in 2001 and started at a Borders Books in June at the WTC, by Sept 11, it didn’t exist, and the reception of the book was mixed, but it found its group who continue to love it, and he hopes to continue Shadow’s story one day, since it’s 10 years older and the Gods are waiting. This version is the original untrimmed text.

Shadow did 3 years in prison and was big enough to not get messed with, so he only had to kill time, stay in shape, teach himself coin tricks and think about how much he loved his wife. The only relief came from knowing he hit rock bottom. He attempted not to talk too much around the middle of his 2nd year. From then on he focused on coin tricks and working out the list of things he would do when he was out until he was closer to the day he’d be let out.

The lists got shorter the closer the date was, making it down to 3 things: he’d take a long bath, with or without paper depending on mood, then put on a robe with slippers, pick up his wife as she squealed happily, carry her to their bedroom, call for pizza when they got hungry, and not emerge for maybe a couple days, after which he’d keep his head down and stay out of trouble for the rest of his life. His roomie lent him Herodotus’ Histories, which he at first protested he didn’t read, but Low Key Lyesmith insisted, and got hooked against his will. Then his roomie got transferred without warning and he’d left the book with Shadow as well as some coins hidden in the pages, which were contraband, but Shadow merely wanting something to busy his hands with. As his day of getting out approached, he started to feel fearful and tried to figure out from what, but became more paranoid, so becoming more watchful.

A month before he’s out he’s in an office for his review, which he’s being asked personal questions about his wife and how they met, as well as if he had a job ready for the outside, Shadow suspiciously accommodating the questions. He makes it through all the questions and answers well, the last week of his time feeling the worst, the sinking feeling he’d been feeling, getting worse. He calls his wife, Laura 5 days before he’s out, and everything sounds fine, she reassuring nothing was wrong. One day in the food hall, an inmate blacker than he was, an older man, sits down next to him and says they had to talk as he ate his mac and cheese.

He states a storm’s coming and he’d be better of there that outside, but to keep his head down, Shadow doesn’t quite follow his next metaphor of a big storm similar to when the tectonic plates riding and North America skids into South America, not wanting to be between them. When he had 2 days left, he’s tapped too hard by a guard on the shoulder to get up. They walk and the guard starts saying he’s too polite, acting like the old fellas, and what was he, using racial epithets like spic (and Span) and the N (we all know), a gypsy. Shadow refuses to take the bait and says maybe to each question, the guard then making certain Shadow didn’t have much time left with them, but he’d be back, claiming to see it in his eyes.

They went up to the warden’s office, Shadow’s first, only seeing the warden 3x during his stay. When he is allowed in the office, the man has him sit and he says he was meant to be released Friday, but they were moving it to this afternoon because of news from a hospital in Eagle Point of his wife dying in the early hours this morning in an auto accident. He packed his items numbly, leaving the book and coin book, dressing in his civilian clothes and walking through door after door, knowing he wouldn’t go back through them. He gets on the ex-school bus with 8 other released inmates, it raining and cold.

Shadow realizes he hadn’t started mourning yet, not feeling anything. The bus stops at the bus station and Shadow gets a taxi to the airport where he gives his e-ticket # and claims his boarding pass. As he waits, he gets a slice of pizza then calls his buddy Robbie, who had said he had a job at his gym when he got out, there wasn’t an answer, so he leaves a voicemail, about getting out early. He continues to wait until someone announces they were boarding, Shadow’s row first, due to being in the back.

When he’s seated, he falls asleep pretty quickly, dreaming of a dark place and a body of a man with a buffalo head. Without moving its lips, it says changes are coming, certain decision having to be decided. Firelight flickered on cave walls, prompting Shadow to ask where he was, the buffalo man replying in and under the earth, where the forgotten wait. His eyes were black liquid marbles, and his voice rumbled beneath the world.

If Shadow was to survive, he must believe. Shadow asks what he should believe, the buffalo man staring at him, eyes filled with flame, and opening his spit-flecked mouth, red with flames burning, he roaring, Everything. The world tipped and spun, and Shadow wakes on the plane with a woman halfheartedly screaming, they still tilting. The pilot came on the intercom stating he was going to attempt to gain altitude to get away from the storm, Shadow dozing again and into a different dream where Low Key says a hit on him had been put out, he back in prison, but Shadow not finding out who or why, and next waking and they were going in for a landing.

When he got off the plane, still waking up, he realized this wasn’t the airport he was meant to be in. He asks a woman, who points him to a man, who instructs him to run to a gate on the far side of the terminal in this much larger airport the pilot had been redirected to and Shadow hadn’t heard, when announced. So, he runs and misses the plane, seeing it pull away, so he goes to another attendant and they figure out a plane to take him, which was near where he started and got him onboard, but when he’d gone to his seat, someone had the same pass, so he’s sent up to 1st class ordering a beer. When he’d 1st gotten on the plane, a man had grinned at him and tapped his watch, and when Shadow was sitting by him, he does this again and adds, he’s late, stating how he’d been concerned he wouldn’t make it, after Shadow apologizes and asked if he was in a hurry.

The flight attendant had gotten his beer, but he’d only had time for a sip before she had to take it back, since they were taking off, the man next to him stating he’d hold his tightly, despite her weak protest of breaking policy. Then Shadow states how kind he’d been concerned and the man in the pale suit replies, kind his ass, he had a job for him, using Shadow’s name, they then taking off, Shadow staring at him, his appearance listed as he held his drink and didn’t spill. Shadow asks how he knew him, after the man asks him, isn’t he going to ask what kind of job. The man chuckles and replies it’s easy to know what people call themselves, with a little thought, a little luck, a little memory, then stating he ask about the job.

Shadow declines, the attendant giving him a fresh glass of beer and he sips at it as the man asks why not, Shadow replying he’s returning home and has a job there, not wanting another. The man continues to smile at him and says there isn’t a job waiting for him, nothing’s waiting for him there, but he’s offering a legitimate job with good pay, limited security, and remarkable fringe benefits, and if he lives, he’ll throw in a pension plan if he thought he’s like one. Shadow replies the man could’ve seen his name on his boarding pass or the side of his bag, the man staying silent. Shadow concludes how he couldn’t have known he’d be on this plane and he’s either a practical joker or trying to hustle something and they should end this conversation.

The man responds by shrugging and Shadow picks up a complimentary magazine, and having difficulty concentrating with the bumpy plane ride, the man silently sipping his Jackie D’s with eyes closed. Shadow wastes some time before putting the magazine away, having finished it, the man opening his eyes and saying he was sorry to hear about his wife, and it being a great loss, Shadow wanting to punch him. Instead he counts to 5 after being reminded of a fellow inmate’s experience on how he acted at an airport landing him back in jail. Shadow then responds he had, as well.

The man shakes his head and states, if it could’ve been any other way, and sighs. Shadow offering she’d perished in a car accident, so it would’ve been quick, and there were worse ways. The man again shakes his head, slowly, seeming to become insubstantial and the plane more real as he says this wasn’t a joke and could pay him better than any job, esp with Shadow being an ex-con, not many trying to hire him. Shadow gets annoyed again, stating there wasn’t enough money in the world.

The man’s grin widened, reminding Shadow of when chimps grin, it’s a threat, this feeling the same. The man says, there’s enough money, but also bonuses, and if Shadow agrees to work for him, he’ll tell him things. Whilst there may be a bit of risk, if he survives he’ll get whatever he wants, he could be next King of America. Who else would pay him this well.

Shadow responds by asking who he is, and the man responds, of course, the age of info, then asking the flight attendant for a refill and continues with how there really hasn’t been any other kind of age, those currencies staying in style. Shadow repeats, who is he, and so the man finally reveals, since today is his day, to call him Wednesday, Mr. Wednesday, although the weather being rainy, it may as well be Thursday. Shadow asks in return what his real name was, to which Wed replies, if Shadow worked for him long and well enough, he may tell him. Concluding there’s the job offer and to think about it.

Take his time, Wed leaning him back and closing his eyes. Shadow replies, he think he’ll decline, he not liking Wed and doesn’t want to work with him. Wed replies, as he said, with eyes closed, don’t rush to answer, take his time. The plane lands with a bump and lets off a few passengers, 2 more airports before Eagle Point stop.

Shadow glances over a Wed seems to be sleeping. Shadow stood and grabbed his bag, stepping off the plane, walking toward the terminal outside in a light rain. No one else get got off the plane after him, looking back and watching the plane take off again, Shadow continuing to the car rental desk, and getting a red Toyota. He unfolds the map they give him, he having to travel 250 miles and not having driven in 3 years, but it mostly by freeway.

After an hour and a half, Shadow realizes he’s hungry, so takes the next exit, stops for gas, and asks for a good car to eat at, the cashier offers Jack’s Crocodile Bar. He follows her directions and parks at the bar, the lot half empty. He walks in and orders a beer, hamburger, and chili starter per upsell, then uses the restroom, checking the room per advice from Low Key and takes a urinal, a polite grunt to his right, Shadow not hearing anyone enter, Wed also pissing, finishing and grinning like a fox, he acting like they’re continuing their chat where he’d left off, with a, so, he’s had time to think, did he want a job.

In L.A. after 11pm, in a dark red room, the walls close to the color of raw liver, a tall woman dressed in too tight silk shorts, breasts pulled up and forward by a yellow blouse tied under them, black hair piled on her head, high, and knotted. Beside her, a short man in an olive t-shirt and name brand blue jeans, holding his wallet and cell. The room had a bed with satin-style ox-blood bedspread, and a wooden table at the foot, a small stone statue of a woman with huge hips and a candleholder on it. The woman hands the man a small red candle and requests he light it.

He acts like what she requested was too much, stating he should’ve had her suck him off in his car, she stating, perhaps, thens asks, doesn’t he want her, running her hand up her body from thigh to breast, selling a product style. Red scarves on the lamp provided red light. The man looks at her hungrily and lights the candle, jamming it in the candleholder, she then instructing him to put his $50 under the statue. They get started, she using her hands and tongue on him, he then asking her name, she replying, Bilquis she requesting he worship her, when he says he wants to fuck her, he obliging and while he’s praying to her goddess abilities, he asks what she’s doing, it feeling amazing, trying to look down, but she pushing his head back up toward the ceiling.

He continues his worship until he orgasms and then his head is dangling upside down, post-coital clarity making him wonder if he was seeing an illusion. He’s not afraid, but he’s inside her up to his chest, she gently pushing his shoulder, continuing to envelop him til he’s gone, she yawning like a huge cat, stretching on the bed, and going to sleep. Meanwhile back with Wed, he’s washing his hands and sharing with Shadow of ordering food to his table, since they had plenty to discuss. Shadow doesn’t think so, but Wed continues he needed a job, people not hiring ex-cons.

Shadow maintaining he had a job, Wed asking if it was the Muscle Farm, Shadow saying maybe. Wed replies he didn’t have the job because Robbie was dead, which meant his business was, as well. Shadow states Wed’s a liar, which he agrees, and a good one, the best he’ll meet, but he wasn’t about this, handing Shadow a paper and directing him to the page, saying they can go to the table and he can read it. He goes back out and the barman points to the table.

Shadow eats his first meal out of prison before reading the paper, the chili was alright, but his late wife, Laura’s had been better, not having ever been able to recreate it himself. Shadow reads the article of his wife and Robbie, both in his car swerving into the path of a 32-wheeler the driver attempting to avoid them, brushing the side of Robbie’s car and it flying into a road sign. Both dead when they arrived at the hospital. Shadow hypothesizes Robbie must’ve been drunk, and Laura hadn’t realized how much until too late.

Shadow folds the paper and slides it back to Wed, still eating his raw steak. Shadow says, he didn’t have a job, so pulls a quarter from his pocket and tosses it, saying to Wed to call, he saying he wouldn’t work for someone with worse luck than himself. When Wed says heads, he states he hadn’t guessed correctly, having rigged it, but Wed saying to check again. Shadow sees his guess had been right, he confused by this, and saying he must’ve fumbled it.

Wed states he was only a lucky, lucky guy, then noticing, and calling over Mad Sweeney, inviting him for a drink with them. He orders a Southern Comfort and Coke, and Wed states he’ll have a talk with the barmen. Mad Sweeney sits by Shadow, wearing a short ginger beard, denim jacket with patches and a stained white t-shirt with

‘IF YOU CAN’T EAT IT. DRINK IT. SMOKE IT OR SNORT IT…THEN F*CK IT!‘,

and a cap with the print:

THE ONLY WOMAN I HAVE EVER LOVED WAS ANOTHER MAN’S WIFE…MY MOTHER!.

Mad Sweeney opens a pack of cigarettes with a dirty thumbnail, takes out a cigarette and offered one to Shadow, about to take one from habit, but he doesn’t smoke, so shakes his head.

Sweeney confirms Shadow working for ‘our man‘, then states he’s a leprechaun. Shadow asking shouldn’t he drink Guinness, Mad Sweeney replying there’s more to Ireland than Guinness. Shadow stating he didn’t have an accent, Sweeney responding he’d been here too fucking long, then Wed returns with their drinks, he having Shadow taste the one he brought for him before telling him it was mead, drink of heroes, of the gods. Shadow says it tastes like sweetened pickle juice, Wed agreeing by saying it tasted like a drunken diabetics piss.

Shadow asks why he brought it for him then, Wed replying it was traditional and needed as much as they could get, sealing their deal. Shadow states they hadn’t, but Wed disagrees, saying he worked for him, protect, and transport him, he’ll investigate once in awhile, go places and ask questions for him, run errands, and in emergency only, hurt people who need it. In the unlikely scenario Wed dies, he’ll hold is vigil, and in return he’ll make sure Shadow’s needs are adequately provided. Mad Sweeney states Wed’s hustling him, labeling him a hustler, which Wed agrees, which was why he needed someone looking out for his best interests.

There was quiet between jukebox songs and chat, Shadow stating how he was told this only happens 20 past or 20 to the hour, it currently 11:20 on the bar clock, Wed stating he knew why and may share one day. Sweeney then gets up for a bathroom break, the man looking near 7 feet tall to Shadow. Wed finishes his earlier statement of duties for Shadow by saying this was what he expected him to do if he’s working for him, which he was. Shadow states if this is what he wanted, then asks if Wed would like to know what he wanted in return.

Wed states nothing would make him happier, so Shadow states, due to his life taking a turn for the worse, he had to do a few things, 1st to go to Laura’s funeral to say goodbye. After, if Wed still needed him, he wanted $500 per week (low, now), Shadow taking a stab in the dark with a made-up number, and if they were happy working together, in 6 months he’ll raise it to a grand a week. Shadow then says, he’ll hurt people if they try to hurt Wed, but he doesn’t do it for fun or profit, not going back to prison, once, enough. Wed confirms he won’t have to, which Shadow agrees, he won’t.

He then declares he didn’t like Wed or whatever his real name was, they weren’t friends, he doesn’t know how he got off the plane without him seeing him or how he followed him there, but it impressed him, Wed had class, and he was at a loose end, currently, and when they were done, he’d be gone, and if Wed pissed him off, he’d be gone, but until then, he’ll work for him. Wed grinned one of his strange smiles to Shadow, having no humor, happiness, or mirth, looking like he learned from a manual. Wed replies, very good, they having an agreement. Wed spits in his hand and extends it to Shadow as Sweeney was feeding the jukebox quarters.

Shadow shrugs, spitting into his own and clasping hands with him. The 2 squeezed hands, Wed holding it for half a minute til Shadow’s hand started hurting, Wed saying, very good again. Wed then states after Shadow had his 3rd glass of mead their deal would be sealed. The jukebox started playing the Velvet Underground as Sweeney returned to the table, Shadow thinking how unlikely this song would be a juke.

Shadow takes out the quarter he’d used for the coin toss, then takes out a 2nd one doing an illusion trick Sweeney asking, coin tricks is it, if this was what they’re doing, watch this. He takes Shadow’s empty mead glass and pours the ice cubes into the ashtray, reaching out and taking a large, golden shining coin from the air. He drops it into the glass, taking another from the air and tossing it in the glass, then another from the candle flame of a candle on the wall, and another from his red beard, another from Shadow’s empty hand, dropping them one by one into the glass. Then he curls his fingers over the glass and blows hard, several more coins, dropping in the glass from his hand, he tipping the glass of sticky coins into his jacket pocket, then tapped his pocket to show it was empty.

He states, there’s a coin trick for him. Shadow puts his head to one side and says, they’d have to talk about this, needing to know how he did it. Sweeney states, he did it with panache and style, laughing silently, rocking on his heels, gapped teeth bared. Shadow agrees and says he had to teach him, stating how the technique, the Miser’s Dream would have him hiding the coins holding the glass and dropping them in while producing and vanishing the coin in his right hand.

Sweeney responds of this sounding like a lot of work, much easier to pick them out of the air, picking up his half finished drink, looking at it, and placing it on the table. Wed gets up to collect Shadow’s last mead, he not pleased, so consuming it in 2 gulps, their deal sealed. Sweeney then asks if he wanted to know how the trick’s done, Shadow confirming, asking if he loaded them in his sleeve. Sweeney denies they were ever up his sleeve, chortling to himself, saying it was the simplest trick in the world and would fight him for it.

Shadow declines, Sweeney stating what a fine thing, Wed had gotten a bodyguard too scared to put his fists up. Shadow agrees, Sweeney swaying and sweating, fiddling with the peak of his cap, pulling a coin from the air and placing it on the table. He then states it’s real gold if he was wondering, and win or lose, but he will lose, it’s his if he fights him, a big fella like Shadow, who’d have though he’d be a fucking coward. Wed responds Shadow had already declined to fight, so he could go, take his beer and leave them in peace.

Sweeney stepped closer to Wed saying he’d called him a freeloader when he’d gotten their last drinks calling him names as his face turned a deep, angry red. Wed put out his hands palms up, stating, foolishness, Sweeney, watch where he put his words. Sweeney glares and replies with the gravity of the very drunk he’d hired a coward, and what would he do if he hurt Wed, who turns to Shadow and states he had enough, and deal with it. Shadow stands, and looked up into Mad Sweeney’s face, saying he’s bothering them, he’s drunk and he thought he should leave.

Sweeney gives a slow smile and states to the room loudly how the little yapping dog was finally read to fight, a lesson to be learned and watch, swinging a huge fist and catching Shadow under his eye, the fight starting, Sweeney fighting without style or science, nothing but enthusiasm landing as often as missing roundhouse blows. Shadow fights defensively and carefully blocking or avoiding Sweeney’s hits. Tables had been moved with groans to make room for them to spar. Shadow’s aware of Wed watching, he recognizing this was a test, but what kind?

Shadow then asks Sweeney breathlessly why they’re fighting, Sweeney stating for the joy of it, seeming more sober. Shadow asks again how Sweeney had produced the coin, Sweeney stating he’d already told him, but there’s none so blind as those who won’t listen, he commending Shadow for a shot well connected. He’d pushed Sweeney into a table and asks if they were done, Sweeney hesitating, then nods, Shadow letting him go, and taking several steps back. Sweeney pants and back standing up, shouts, not on his ass, and it wasn’t over til he said so, throwing himself forward and grinning, swinging at Shadow, stepping on a fallen ice cube, the grin turning into dismay when his feet go out from beneath him and falling backwards, the back of his head hitting the floor with a definite thud.

Shadow places a knee on Sweeney’s chest and asks again if they’re done fighting. Sweeney acquiescing, saying they may as well be, the joy going out of him now like the pee from a small boy in a swimming pool on a hot day. He spits out blood and closed his eyes, starting to snore deeply. Wed claps Shadow on the back putting a bottle of beer in his hand, tasting better than the mead.

Shadow wakes stretched in the back of the car, the morning sun bright and hurting his head. He sits up awkwardly, rubbing his eyes. Wed’s driving and humming tunelessly, coffee in the cupholder with cruise control at 65. Wed asks how he was feeling this fine morning without turning, in response Shadow asks where his rental was Wed replying Mad Sweeney is taking it back for him, it part of the deal they’d made, Shadow barely remembering the fight, the deal made after.

Shadow asks if there was more coffee and Wed passes him water, stating they’ll get him breakfast at the next gas station, and so he could clean up, looking like something the goat dragged in. As Shadow drank, he felt a coin clink in his jacket pocket, pulling out a half dollar sized gold coin. Wed reminds him he’d been drinking mead when asked, Shadow remembering most of the night, but some of it, not, as Wed gunned for the exit with a gas station. When they get there, Shadow buys a travel kit with shaver and toothbrush, he looking cleaner by the end of it, but older with his bruised eye, he 32.

When he walks back out, Wed’s purchasing the gas and some snacks, annoying the lady at the register as he changed his mind twice on wanting to use cash or card, looking on the verge of tears, and when they get outside Shadow offers to drive. Wed declines with a hell no as it slowly starts to snow, Shadow noting Wed hadn’t paid for the gas, Wed stating the lady will never notice, and agreeing when Shadow calls him a two-bit con artist, among other things. Shadow then asks if Sweeney had showed him how to do the trick with gold coins, Wed confirming, and it’ll come back to him. Wed then updates Shadow on his wife’s body at the funeral parlor being on display it now, and after lunch they’ll take her to the graveyard, saying he’d called when Shadow was in the men’s room.

They take the exit Shadow indicates and they drive through town, it looking a bit different after 3 years, the Muscle Farm with a handwritten sign, saying closed indefinitely, another with, Due to Bereavement. They seeing the funeral parlor last, Wed saying he’ll get them rooms at Motel America and to meet there after. Shadow walks into the corridor as Wed pulled away. Shadow was palming the gold coin in his pocket compulsively as he walked into the Chapel of Rest, her family and coworkers there, no one smiling when seeing him or saying hello. He didn’t want to view Laura, but could see her body where he stood, signing the condolence back when offered by a funeral home worker.

Then, a small woman Shadow recognized as Robbie’s wife, Audrey, walks in with flowers and goes to the casket, Shadow following, she placing the flowers on Laura’s chest, then spitting in her face. She leaves and Shadow follows her, asking what that was about, the woman acting like she was on tranquilizers saying first violets were Laura’s favorite since they’d been girl’s than supplying Laura had died with her husband’s cock in her mouth. When Shadow walks back in someone had wiped the spit already. They had the funeral, which Audrey attended standing at the back, Shadow staying til after.

During the ride in the hearse with Laura’s mother, she was blaming him for not having been there, not of this happening otherwise, her double chins jiggling as she raised her head. Shadow stood at the grave as it snowed erratically, wanting to say something to Laura, and waiting til it came to him, his feet going numb from the chill, hands and face hurting. When he puts his hands in his pockets, he feels the gold coin, walking to the grave, he states it was for her, throwing it into the grave with a few shovels full of dirt on top, he pushing some more dirt to cover the coin, then says, good night, Laura, adding he’s sorry, and turns toward town. He had a 2 mile walk, but after prison, looked forward to it.

Audrey pulls up beside him and asks if he needed a ride, he declining, and adds, not from her. She drives beside him, trying to make conversation, but Shadow finally gets to her when she asks how prison had been, his reply being she’d have felt at home, she revving off. As he walked, he thought he’d get water, but it failing. Shadow wished there was a sidewalk, when he trips over something and falls, one hand sinking into cold mud, when he gets back up, he stood there for a month, noticing too late as someone appears beside him and places something wet over his nose and mouth, smelling chemicals, the ditch feeling warm and comforting this time.

When awaking, his temples felt reattached to his skull with roofing nails, and his vision was blurry. Hands bound behind his back with what felt like straps, he was in a car, sitting far behind the front, people were beside him, but he couldn’t turn to look. A fat young man on the other end of the stretch limo took a can of Diet Coke from the cocktail bar and popped it open, he was wearing a long black coat, made of silky material, and appeared to be just out of his teens, some acne on one cheek, glistening as he smiled when he saw Shadow was conscious. He greets Shadow with a hello and not to fuck with him, Shadow acquiescing, he wouldn’t, then asks if he could be dropped off at Motel America.

The young man responds by requesting someone hit Shadow sitting to the other side of him. Shadow feels a punch hit his solar plexus, doubling him over, knocking the breath from him, he straightening slowly, the young man repeating not to fuck with him, which Shadow just did, he stating Shadow keep his responses short and to the point or he’ll fucking kill him or not, maybe having ‘the children‘ break all his bones, so don’t fuck with him. Shadow responds, he got it. The young man states Shadow was working for Wed, Shadow agreeing, the young man asks what he’s doing there, he must have a plan, and what is it.

Shadow replies he started this morning, was an errand boy, maybe a driver, if he ever let him drive, they’ve barely spoken, so the young man asks, he saying he doesn’t know, Shadow agreeing. The young man stares, swigs his soda and burps, then asks if he’d tell him even if he did know, Shadow admitting, probably not, since he worked for Wed. The young man offers him a cigarette, which after considering asking his hands be untied, declines respectfully. When the young man lights one, it smelled like burning electrical parts, the young man stating if Shadow had lied, he’ll fucking kill him, which he should know.

Shadow agreeing, he’d said so. Then, he taps the window behind him, the window lowering and he has him drop Shadow at the motel. The young man then tells Shadow to relay Wed a message, he’s history, forgotten, and old, and to accept it. They’re the future and don’t give a fuck about him or anyone like him, his time over, yes?

He continues, tell him this, he’s been consigned to the dumpster of history while people like him ride their limos down the superhighway of tomorrow. Shadow agrees to tell Wed, starting to feel light-headed, and hoping he wouldn’t be sick. The young man continues saying to tell Wed they’d reprogrammed reality, language a virus and religion an operating system, and prayer only so much fucking spam, tell him this or he’ll fucking kill Shadow, he saying mildly. Shadow again agrees he got it, he saying he could let him out there, and he’ll walk the rest of the way.

The young man nods and says, good talking to him, the smoke mellowing around him. He then shares, Shadow should know if they do fucking kill him, then they’ll merely delete him, once click and he’s overwritten with random ones and zeros, undelete not an option. He taps the window behind him, and states Shadow is getting out there, turning back to Shadow and pointing to his cigarette, synthetic toad skins, did he know they can synthesize bufotenen now? The car stops, the person next to Shadow getting out and holding the door open for him, he following awkwardly with hands behind his back, which are cut when he’s out, he turning around and seeing inside the smoky limo, the young man stating how it’s all about the dominant fucking paradigm, nothing else important and he was sorry to hear about his wife.

The door shut and the stretch limo drove away quietly, Shadow only a couple 100 yards from the motel, he walking there and getting to the motel safely. When he goes in to the counter, the woman acts suspicious of him, despite she confirming his friend had checked him in, insisting she call his room to inform he was there. Wed comes out and leads him back, asking about the funeral and whether he wanted to talk about it, Shadow declining, which Wed was glad of, saying he could order a pizza to the room if he was hungry. Wed’s room had maps spread on the bed and walls, different bright color markers drawn on them.

Shadow then states he got ‘hijacked‘ by a fat kid in a limo and said to tell him he’d been consigned to the ‘dung heap of history‘, while people like him ride in limos down the superhighway of life, something like that. Wed responds by calling the kid a little snot. Shadow asks if he knew him and Wed states he knew who he was, and they not having a clue, then asking how long Shadow needed in town, he replying possibly a week to get Laura’s affairs in order, take care of the apartment, get rid of her clothes, etc, which will drive her mother nuts, but deserving it. Wed nods, saying the sooner he finishes the sooner they can move from Eagle Point, good night. Shadow walks across the hall to his room and orders pizza, drawing a bath in the meantime.

He couldn’t lay in it, but luxuriated as best he could, the pizza arriving soon after he got out, eating it with root beer, and turning the TV on, watching Jerry Springer, this episodes theme being, ‘I want to be a prostitute‘, and several ‘would-be whores‘, mostly female brought out, shouted at and heckled by the audience, then a gold-draped pimp walking out and offering them jobs, an ex-hooker running out and pleading with them to get real jobs. Shadow turns it off before Jerry gives his final thought. Shadow lays in bed thinking it’s the first bed as a free man, the thought not as pleasurable as he’d thought. He left the drapes opening, watching lights of cars and fast food spots through the glass, comforted to know there was a world out there he could walk to whenever he wanted.

Despite knowing he could go to his apartment, he felt it’d be too painful remembering Laura there. Shadow diverts his thoughts to coin tricks, but his thoughts returned to what Audrey had told him about Laura, he attempting a breathing exercise before sleep took him without him noticing. He was walking through a room larger than a city, and everywhere he saw statues and carvings, and rough-hewn images, he standing near a statue of a woman-like thing with hanging, naked breasts, fat on her chest, around her waist a chain with severed hands, but her hands holding knives, and instead of a head were twin serpents, bodies arched facing each other and ready to attack, from her neck. Shadow backs from it and walks through a hall.

The carved eyes of the statues seemed to have eyes following his steps. He then notices each statue had a name burning on the floor in front of it, he reading a few. Then a precise, fussy and exact voice speaks to him, seeing no one as they say, these were gods who were forgotten, they may as well being dead, found only in ‘dry histories‘. They’re all gone, but their names and images remaining with them.

Shadow turns a corner and knew this was larger than the last, going beyond sight. Close by was the skull of a mammoth, and a hairy ochre-cloaked small woman with a deformed hand. Next to this were 3 women carved from the same granite boulder joined at the waist, faces unfinished, but their breasts and genitals carved with intricate detail, along with a flightless bird Shadow didn’t recognize twice his height and a beak like a vulture, but with human arms. The voice speaks again, like it was speaking to a class saying, these are the gods who’ve passed from memory, even their names lost the people who worshipped them just as forgotten.

Their totems long since broken and cast down, their last priests dying without passing on the secrets. Gods die and when they truly do, they are unmourned and unremembered, ideas more difficult to kill than people, but able to be killed in the end. A whispering noise started running through the hall, Shadow feeling a fear, an all-engulfing panic taking him in the halls of the Gods whose existences were forgotten, this when Shadow wakes, his heart pumping, seeing the clock shortly after 1 a.m. and fully awake. He could recall the dream vividly, and after using the bathroom couldn’t explain why it scared him.

The light coming from outside wasn’t bright, his eyes used to the dark, and a woman sitting on the side of his bed, Shadow knowing her, Laura speaking in a whisper as she said, she guessed he’d ask what she’s doing there. Shadow doesn’t reply and sits in the only chair, asking, babe is it her, she replying, yes, she’s cold, puppy. He states, she’s dead, babe. She confirms this, patting the bed next to her and requesting he sit by her, he declining, declaring they had unresolved issues to address, she asking, like she being dead, and he responding, possibly, but more toward how she’d died with Robbie.

Laura responds, oh. That. She asking by using her nickname for him, Puppy, could he get her a cigarette, he thinking she’d quit, and she had, but she isn’t concerned with health risks now. They may calm her nerves and she saw a machine in the lobby. When he’d gone, he asks the night clerk for a book of matches, and after getting Shadow’s room #, says he’s in a nonsmoking, so open a window, also giving him an ashtray.

He gets back to the room and opens the window, providing the accessories, and after a few puffs, she states it didn’t seem to be doing anything, and she couldn’t taste it. Shadow apologizes and she does, as well, asking how prison was, he stating it could’ve been worse. She responds she shouldn’t have mixed him up in it and he replying he’d agreed, and could’ve declined. She agrees, and then asks if he wanted to know about she and Robbie, he confirming.

She starts with Shadow being in prison made her need someone to talk to (Why not Audrey?), a shoulder to cry on, he not there, and she being upset. Shadow apologizes and she continues with they meeting for coffee and talking about what they’d do when he got out, how good it’d be to see him again, Robbie truly liking Shadow and looking forward to giving his job back. Then Audrey visited her sister for a week, 13 months after he’d been put away. Robbie came over and they got drunk, cheating on their spouses on the floor of the bedroom, she saying it was really good, and Shadow responding he hadn’t needed to know.

She responds, no?, and apologizes, harder to pick and choose when dead, it being like a photo and not mattering as much. Shadow states it mattered to him, Laura lighting another cigarette. They carried on the label-less affair for most of the last 2 years. When he asks if she planned to leave him, she’d said no, he being her big bear, her puppy, and he’d done what he did for her, she waiting 3 years for him to come back to her, she loving him and he resisting responding.

He then asks what happened ‘the other‘ night, she supplying Robbie and she’d gone out to talk about Shadow’s welcome back ‘surprise‘ party, since she’d told him. She states, they were done now Shadow would be back, Shadow thanking her, and she replying, ‘You’re welcome, darling‘, then concluding, they’d gotten sentimental and stupid, but it was sweet, and she’d gotten very drunk, he not, due to driving, and as he was behind the wheel, she announces giving a final road-head, and did. Shadow states, big mistake, she agreeing, since her shoulder knocked the gearshift, and Robbie tries to push her out of the way to put it back in gear, but they were swerving and a large crunch. She remembers the roll and spin, and thinks she’s going to die, without emotion, not scared, and doesn’t recall anything else.

He then asks what she was doing there, and through a quick back and forth didn’t know much more than she had when alive, but thanked him for her present, pulling out the gold coin, it sweet of him. She planned on watching out for him, since he’d mixed himself in some things and would screw it up if he didn’t have someone looking out for him. She then states she’d go for now, giving him a goodbye kiss, which left no doubt she was dead. She states he could’ve asked her to stay the night, he replying he didn’t think he could, she responding he would before this was all over.

Shadow walks to Wed’s room having a strange notion he was being stricken by black wings, like a large crow was flying through him and into the hall and world beyond. Wed opens the door with a towel wrapped around his waist, he naked, and asking what the hell he wanted, he in the middle of something, so to spit it out. Shadow then sees the young motel clerk in his bed, he quickly relaying he’d seen his dead wife and not as a ghost, when asked. Wed tells the woman he’d be right back, walks with Shadow back to his room, and sees the cigarette butt, saying ok, is he scared, and Shadow agreeing he was a little.

Wed asks if there was anything else, Shadow replying, he was ready to leave Eagle Point. He’d leave Laura’s affairs to her mother, since she hated him anyways, so he’s ready to leave when Wed was. Wed replies, good news, and they’d leave in the morning, he should get some sleep, then withdrawing after relaying he didn’t sleep, and had a long night ahead. Shadow sat on the bed, troubled by Laura, but it time to mourn, he recalling who they were when younger, he not having cried even when his mother passed away, but he doing so now, missing Laura and their lives before. For the first time since he was a small boy, crying himself to sleep.

Then, back in 813 A.D., ‘they‘ navigated the green sea by the stars and shore, and when there wasn’t a shore and the sky was overcast, they’d navigate by faith and call on the all-father to bring them safely to land again. It was a bad journey, fingers numb, and shivers wine couldn’t burn off. When they woke in the morning, frost was on their beards until the sun warmed them, looking old before their time. Teeth were loosening and eyes deep-sunken into sockets when they reached green land to the west.

They said they were far from their homes, seas, and lands they loved, at the edge of the world, they’d be forgotten by their gods. Their leader mocks them for their lack of faith, climbing to the top of a great rock, and stating the all-father made the world, building it with his hands from the shattered bones and flesh of Ymir, his grandfather, his brains the clouds, salt blood, the sea, and he’d have made this land as well, and if they’d die, wouldn’t they be received into his hall? This has the men laughing and cheering, and so started building a hall, as far as they knew, being the only men on the new land. When the hall was finished, the same day was a storm by midday, the man laughing and clapping to have the thunderer with them, getting drunk and giving thanks.

The bard sang them the old songs in the smoky darkness of Odin the all-father being sacrificed to himself as bravely as others had been to him. He sang of the 9 days he hung from the world-tree, his side pierced and dripping blood from the spear-point, this part of the song a scream representing how he would’ve and everything the all-father had learned in his agony, 9 names, 9 runes, and twice 9 charms. The next day they encountered a scraeling (person indigenous to North America) and none of them understood the language he spoke, not even the bard who had been on a ship sailing through the pillars of Hercules and could speak the trader’s pidgin spoken by men across the Mediterranean. The man was dressed in feathers and furs, small bones braided into his long hair.

They lead him into their encampment, and give him roasted meat and strong drink. They laugh when he stumbles, and sings under the table with his head on his arm. Then the men pick him up, a man at each shoulder and leg and carried him in procession to an ash tree on the hill overlooking, the bay, where they put a rope around his neck and hang him high in the air, tribute to the all-father, the gallows lord. The men cheered, shouted, and laughed, proud of their sacrifice to the Heavens, and the next day when to huge ravens land on the scraeling’s corpse, one on each shoulder, and pecked at its cheeks and eyes, the men knew their offering had been accepted.

The winter was lengthy and they were hungry, but cheered by the thought when spring came, they’d send a boat back to the northlands and bring settlers, and women. As the weather grew colder and days shorter, some men went searching for the scraeling village, hoping to discover food and women, but found nothing, save for where fires had been and small encampments abandoned. One midwinter day, when the sun was distant and cold, they saw the remains of the scraeling’s body had been removed from the tree, and by noon snow started falling in huge, slow flakes. The men of the northlands closed their gates to their encampment and retreated behind their wooden wall.

The scraeling war party fell on them during the night, 500 men to 30 idiots. They climbed their wall and over 7 days killed all 30 men, 30 different ways, and the sailors were forgotten by history and their people. The wall was torn down, and the village burned, the longboat, upside-down and pulled high on the shingle (small-rounded pebbles on seashore), they also burned, hoping the pale strangers only had one boat and this would ensure no other Northman would visit their shores. It was more than 100 years before Leif the Fortunate, son of Erik the Red, rediscovered the land, which he named Vineland.

His gods were waiting for him when he arrived: Tyr, one-handed, and gray Odin gallows-god, and Thor of the thunders. There and waiting. Back with Shadow and Wed eating breakfast across the street from their motel, 8 a.m. and chilly with mist. Wed makes sure Shadow’s truly ready to leave, Wed planning to make some phone calls, if so. Today Friday being a free day and Sat, having much to do.

Shadow confirms he’s ready and nothing keeping him. They made their plates at the breakfast bar and sit at a booth. Wed states Shadow had some dream last night, he agreeing it was, Laura’s muddy footprints visible on the motel carpet, Shadow seeing it track from his room to the lobby and out the door. Wed then asks why he’s called Shadow, he shrugging and replying it’s a name.

He asks in return, how Wed lost his eye, assuming he must’ve for the 2 being different color gray. Wed responds after shoveling 6 pieces of bacon into his mouth, stating he hadn’t lost it, he knew exactly where it was. Shadow then asks what the plan is, Wed considering as he ate slices of ham. Then shares, on Sat. night they’ll meet with some people experts in their fields, and not to let their behavior intimidate him.

They’d meet at one of the most important places in the country, afterward they’d wine and dine them, being around his guess, 30-40 of them, maybe more, Wed needing to enlist them into his current endeavors. Shadow then asks where the location to the most important place in the country was, the reply being to clarify, one of them, and opinions were divided, but sending word to his colleagues. They would stop in Chicago on the way so Wed could pick up some cash, so they can entertain when the time comes, then they’d go on to Madison. Wed pays the bill and they walk to the motel parking lot where Wed tosses Shadow the keys, once more on the freeway out of town.

Wed asks if he’ll miss the town, Shadow stating no, since it was Laura’s town with Laura memories, and due to he moving around as a kid and hadn’t gotten there until his 20s, he not truly having a life there. The town was her, and Wed states they should hope she stays there, Shadow stating it was a dream. Wed replying good, a healthy attitude, did he fuck her, Shadow taking a breath, saying it wasn’t his damn business, and no. Wed continues, did he want to, receiving silence as Shadow drove toward Chicago, Wed chuckling and making notes on a yellow legal pad as he looked at maps.

Wed finishes and puts his pen away and folder in the backseat. Wed mentions the states they were heading for, Minnesota, Wisconsin and all around there were the women he liked when he was younger, naming the body type. Wed states the secret to getting them was charm, and charms can be learned. Shadow asks again where they were going, Wed replying they were seeing an old friend of his they needed to chat with, one of the people coming to the get-together.

He’s an old man now and was expecting them for dinner. As they continued on their way, Shadow asks if Wed was responsible for whatever’s happening with Laura, did he make it happen. Wed denies he had, as puzzled as Shadow, who turns the radio on and listens to Bob Dylan. Chicago slowly trickled upon them, they parking outside a short, black, brownstone, the sidewalk cleared of snow, the 2 walking into the lobby and Wed pressing the top button on the intercom.

Nothing happens, so after pressing it again, then tries the other buttons, an old woman in a thick East European accent says it’s dead and the super knows and doesn’t fix it. Wed bows and greets her as Zorya, saying how beautiful she looked, being radiant and not having aged. The woman, looking gaunt, glares at him and replies, he didn’t want to see him, she didn’t either, Wed only bad news. Wed states it’s since he doesn’t come unless it’s important.

Zorya sniffs, carrying an empty shopping bag and wearing an old red coat buttoned to the chin, a green velvet hat on her gray hair. She looks at Shadow suspiciously asking Wed who is the big man, another of his murderers? Wed replies she did him a deep disservice, being formal, continuing to supply the gentleman’s name and was working for him, but on her behalf, introducing him officially to the lovely Zorya Vechernyaya. Shadow states it’s nice to meet her, the woman looking at him bird-like, she stating Shadow is a good name, when the shadows long, being her time, and he a long shadow.

She looks him up and down and smiles, saying he can kiss her hand, extending her cold hand. Shadow bends to kiss her thin hand and notices her amber ring on her middle finger. She states, good boy then announces she’s buying groceries, she the only one bringing in money, the other to unable to make money fortune-telling, they only able to tell the truth and this not what people want to hear, she telling pretty fortunes, bringing home the bread, and did he think he would be here for supper. Wed replying he hoped so, she stating he better give her money to buy more food, she proud but not stupid.

The others were prouder than her and he the proudest of all. So give her money and don’t tell them he had. Wed opens his wallet and gives her a $20, Vechernyaya plucking it from his fingers and waiting, so he taking out another 20 and giving it to her. She responds, is good, they’ll feed them like princes, like they would with their father.

They can go up the stairs to the top, Zorya Utrennyaya being awake, but their other sister still asleep, so don’t make too much noise when they get up there. The 2 climb the dark stairs, the landing 2-stories up half-filled with black plastic garbage bags smelling of rotten veggies. Shadow asks if they’re gypsies, Wed replying not at all, they’re Russian, Slavs he believed. The landing at the top of the stairs had a single red-painted door with peephole, Wed panting and knocking to no response, knocking louder and someone responding, ok! ok!, he hearing them, the sound of locks undone and bolts unpulled, the chain staying latched and the door opening a crack.

An old man asks who it was, cigarette-roughened, the response being an old friend, using his name, Czernobog, with an associate. The door opens as far as the chain lets, Shadow seeing a gray face in shadows peering at them. Czernobog asks what did he want, Grimnir. The response, initially the pleasure of his company, he having info to share.

He may learn something to his advantage. He opens the door all the way, the man in a short dusty bathrobe, gray hair and craggy featured. He had on pinstripe pants, shiny with age and slippers on. He had an unfiltered cigarette, smoking it cupped in his fist, like a con or soldier.

The man extends his left hand and welcomes Grimnir, he stating they call him Wed nowadays, shaking his hand. A narrow smile flashed yellow teeth, he stating, very funny, then indicating who was with him, Wed introducing Shadow and Mr. Czernobog, he shaking his hand, which were calloused and rough with yellow tips of the fingers. Shadow asks respectfully, how do you do, and Czerno answers truthfully, Zorya Utrennyaya standing behind him and telling them to come into the sitting room, and she’ll bring them coffee. They sit on the horsehair sofa and she asks how they take their coffee, she stating they’d take it black as night, sweet as sin, Shadow agreeing to the same, respectfully.

As she leaves, Czerno states, she’s a good woman, unlike her sisters, one a harpy, the other sleeping all the time. Shadow asks if she’s his wife, and he responds, she’s nobody’s wife, they’re all relatives, sharing how they came to NY and he being a knocker for a meat business. Utrennyaya says to not share cow-killing stories when she comes back with the dark, nearly black coffees. She shares her sister Vechernyaya is shopping, Shadow replying they met her downstairs and told them about telling fortunes, Utrennyaya confirming, she and her other sister, Zorya Polunochnaya telling no lies.

Shadow tastes the coffee, stronger and sweeter than expected, then exusing himself to use the bathroom, hearing raised voices as he washed his hands. Czerno was standing in the hall and shouting of Wed bringing trouble and he won’t listen, and to get out of his house. Czerno was standing in the hall and shouting of Wed bringing trouble and he won’t listen, and to get out of his house. Wed was still seated on the sofa, sipping coffee and stroking the old gray cat they’d disturbed to make room for them on the couch.

Shadow asks what the problem was, and Czerno replies, Wed is the problem, Utrennyaya reminding him to please be quiet for Polunochnaya, Czerno replying she wanted him to join the madness, she like Wed, sounding on the verge of tears. Wed stands and puts a hand on Czerno’s shoulder saying it wasn’t madness, everyone would be there, and he wouldn’t want to be left out, right? Czerno responds, Wed knew who he is, he knew what his hands had done, and he wanted his brother, not him, his bro gone. A door opens in the hall and a sleepy female voice asks if there’s something wrong.

Utrennyaya says, nothing’s wrong, go back to sleep. She then berates Czerno for waking her and to go back in and sit. Czerno looks like he would protest, then the fight leaves and looked frail, suddenly. The 3 men walk back into the room, Wed stating, it doesn’t have to be for Czerno, it could be for his brother, then asks if he’d heard anything from Bielebog, Czerno shaking his head.

Vechernyaya comes in to state, supper was in an hour, then leaves the room. Czerno sighs, saying, she thinks she’s a good cook, having been brought up with servants cooking, now there being none, and nothing. Wed replies, there’s never nothing. Czerno stating again, he wouldn’t listen to him, turning to Shadow and asking if he played checkers, Shadow replying he did.

Czerno states, good, he’d play the game with him, grabbing the box on the mantel and Wed saying to Shadow, he didn’t have to play. Shadow replies he wanted to, so Wed shrugs and picks up a Reader’s Digest as the game starts. In the days to come, Shadow would recall this game, some nights dreaming of it. Shadow had the first move with white piece, looking like old, dirty wood.

In his dreams there wasn’t any chat, and when they first made moves they’d take care, pausing like chess games, lengthy. Shadow had played checkers in prison, also chess, but not temperamentally suited for it, not liking to plan ahead. Czerno captures one of Shadow’s pieces first, declaring, first blood. He lost, the game done. Shadow denying this, the game having a ways to go.

Czerno asks if he’d like a side bet then to make it more interesting, Wed declining this without looking up from his magazine. Czerno replies he’s playing with Shadow, who asks what they had been shouting about, Czerno saying his master wants him to come with him and he’d rather die. Shadow challenges, if he wanted a bet, if he won he’d go with them, Czerno countering, if he won he’d get to knock Shadow’s brains out, with the sledgehammer. Wed declares this was getting ridiculous and was getting up to leave, disturbing the cat, who stalks out of the room with tail held high.

Shadow declines and takes the bet, making his next move, Wed now watching the game. Czerno takes another piece, then Shadow takes 2 of Czerno’s, smells of food now wafting, and Shadow realizing how hungry he was. Pieces were taken, and then kings made, Czerno had 3 and Shadow 2. Czerno goes around the board taking out Shadow’s remaining pieces as his 2 other kings kept Shadow’s pieces pinned.

Then Czerno makes a 4th king. He returns down the board to Shadow’s 2 kings and takes them, unsmiling. Czerno states he gets to knock out his brains, and get on his knees willingly, he patting Shadow’s arm. Shadow offers another game same terms, since they had time before dinner.

Czerno lights another cigarette, and says, how, does he expect to kill him twice? Shadow states right now Czerno had 1 blow and he’d admitted needing 2, so this game, he’d get 2. Czerno gave him an angry look, he replying, it only takes 1 blow, this being the art. Shadow states how long it must be since last he’d knocked, Czerno taking a moment before setting up the board, and saying, Play, again, he’s light, Czerno dark.

Shadow notices Czerno was moving his pieces the same way, so decides to make quicker moves, Shadow smiling and then wider, as the game progressed. Czerno slams his pieces down and finally gets one of Shadow’s, he in return getting 4 of Czerno’s and kinging himself. After this Shadow cleaned up the game and it was done, Shadow asking for best of 3. Czerno stared, then laughed, clapping Shadow on the shoulder’s declaring, he liked him, and he had balls.

Then Utrennyaya peeks her head through the door saying, dinner was ready and they should clear their game and set the tablecloth down. First course was borscht with potato, 2nd was roast with over-boiled vegetables, 3rd course was stuffed cabbage leaves with meat and rice, which Shadow wasn’t really eating. Czerno states how they played checkers and they’d both won a game, so he’ll go with them in their madness and after, he’ll kill the young man with a hammer blow. The 2 sisters nod gravely, Vechernyaya saying her fortune would’ve had him live a long life with many children.

Wed cleans his plate and thanks the ladies, wanting a recommendation for a hotel, but Vechernyaya saying, why go, weren’t they friends? Wed says, he didn’t want to put them to any trouble, Utrennyaya responding it wasn’t, Vechernyaya saying Wed would have Bielebog’s room and Shadow would have the couch. Wed responds it was kind of them and they accept, Vechernyaya replying he can pay what he’d pay for a hotel, starting at $100 and settling on $45. The table is cleared, Shadow helps Vechernyaya take dishes to the kitchen.

They go back in for bought apple pie warmed in the oven. The 4 eat with ice cream, after Vechernyaya having everyone leave as she set it for Shadow. Wed chats with him, as they wait in the corridor, saying what he’d done with the checkers game was good, but very stupid, and sleep safe. Shadow brushed his teeth and washed his face, then walking to the sitting room, turned out the light and fell asleep before his head hit the pillow.

Shadow’s dream had explosions while he drove a truck through a minefield, bombs went off on either side of him, he feels warm blood running down his face when the windshield shatters. Someone was shooting at him, a bullet puncturing his lung, shattering his spine and another hitting his shoulder, he collapsing on the steering wheel, the last explosion ending with darkness. Shadow thinks he must be dreaming, in the darkness, thinking he just died. When he was a boy he thought if you died in dreams, you would in life.

He opens his eyes tentatively. There was a woman in the room with him, standing against the window with her back to him. She apologizes turning and saying she’ll go in a thick Eastern European accent. Shadow says it’s ok, she hadn’t woken him, he had a dream.

She agrees saying he’d cried out and moaned, she wanted to wake him, but decided against it. He asked what she’d been looking at, and she waves him over, she pointing to the Big Dipper, and says she’s going to sit on the roof if he wanted to come along, he agreeing. She looked much younger than her sisters. She opened the window and up the fire escape, Shadow following once putting his sweater and socks and shoes on.

Once on the roof he followed her to a water tower with a bench being blocked by the wind, the 2 sitting. He asks her she not minding the cold, only being in a nightgown, barefoot and obviously naked underneath, she replying no, it doesn’t bother her, this time her time, which would be impossible to feel uncomfortable in. Her sister, Utrennyaya is of the dawn, she waking in the old country to open the gates for their father to drive the chariot, and Vechernyaya would open the gates for him at dusk when he returned to them. She points to the Big Dipper, what she’d been looking at, calling it Odin’s Wain, and the Great Bear.

Where they came from, they believe it’s a thing, not a god, but like a god, a bad thing, chained up in the stars, and if it escapes it’ll eat everything. So there’s 3 sisters who must watch the sky all day and night, since, if he escapes, the world is over. The chill kept Shadow from thinking he was dreaming, then asking her how old she was, her sisters seeming much older. Polunochnaya nods and replies she’s the youngest, Utrennyaya born in the morning, Vechernyaya in the evening, and she at midnight, she asking if he’s married.

Shadow states she’d died and he’d just been to the funeral, Polunochnaya apologizing. Shadow then shares she’d visited him last night, she asking if he’d asked what she wanted, he stating, not really. Polunochnaya says, perhaps he should, it’s the wisest thing to ask the dead, sometimes they’ll tell them. She then mentions Vechernyaya had told her Shadow’d played checkers with Czerno, Shadow confirming and said, he’d won the right to knock in his skull with a sledge.

She shares, in the old days people would take others to the top of the mountains and smash the back of their skulls with a rock for Czernobog. Shadow shares, how he felt he was in a world with its own sense of logic and its own rules, like being in a dream, and knowing there are rules one mustn’t break, but not knowing what they are or what they mean. He has no idea what they were talking about, or what happened today or pretty much anything, since he got out of jail, only going along with it. Polunochnaya understood, saying he’d been given protection once, but he’d lost it already, giving it away.

He had the sun in his hand and lost it already, which was life itself, all she could give him was much weaker protection, from the daughter not the father, but all helps, right? He asks if he had to fight or play checkers with her, she replying he didn’t even have to kiss her, just take the moon. Shadow states he didn’t understand, she demonstrating. She plucks at the moon, and seemed to hold it, then smoothly plucked, momentarily looking like she’d taken the moon from the sky, but it still shone in the sky as Polunochnaya opened her hand to show a silver Liberty-head dollar resting between finger and thumb.

Shadow commends her palming technique and admits not knowing how she did the last part. She responds, she hadn’t palmed it, she took it, and is giving it to him to keep safe, and not to give this one away. She puts it in his hand and closes his fingers on it, the coin cold, she then closes his eyes with her fingers and kisses him lightly upon each eyelid. Shadow next wakes on the sofa, still dressed.

Sunlight is coming through the window in a narrow shaft showing dust motes. Shadow walks back to the window as he checked for what had bothered him, since last night, no fire escape, balcony, or rusting metal steps outside the window. He still held the 1922 Liberty-head silver dollar, Wed peeking through the door and saying, Oh, he’s up, good, asking if he wanted coffee, they were going to rob a bank.

Back to 1721, Mr. Ibis wrote in his leather-bound journal about the important part to understand about American history, is it was fiction for children or the easily bored. For the most part, it’s uninspected, unimagined, unthought, a representation of it, and not the thing itself. It’s a fiction America was founded by pilgrims seeking freedom to believe as they wanted, coming to spread and breed and fill the empty land. Truthfully, the American colonies were as much of a dumping ground as an escape, a forgetting place, during the days one could be hanged in London from Tyburn’s triple-crowned tree for theft of 12 pennies, America becoming a symbol of mercy and a 2nd chance.

The conditions of transportation were such, which for some it was easier taking the leap from the leafless and dance on nothing until the dancing is done. Transportation was what it was called, for 5, 10 years, or for life, this was the sentence. People were sold to a captain and would ride in his ship crowded tight to the colonies or the West Indies, off the boat the captain selling them as indentured servants to one who would take the cost of one’s skin out in their labor until the years of indenture were done. Which was better than waiting to hang in an English prison (since back then prisons were where prisoners stayed until freed, exported, or hanged, not sentenced for a term) and free to make the best of one’s new world.

Once could also bribe a sea captain to return to England before the terms of one’s transportation were done, people had, and if the authorities caught them returning, or an old enemy or friend with a score to settle saw them and ‘peached‘ on them, the person would hang without pause. Mr. Ibis was reminded of the life of Essie Tregowan, as he filled his inkwell and continued to write. She from a village in Cornwall, Southwest of England, her father a fisherman, and rumored being a wrecker, someone who hang lamps on the dangerous coast when storm winds raged, luring ships onto the rocks for the goods onboard. Essie’s mother was in service as a cook at the squire’s house, and when Essie was 12, she started working in the scullery.

She wasn’t a hard worker, but always slipped away to listen to tales and stories, if anyone would tell them, of the piskies and the spriggans, black dogs of the moors, and the seal-women of the Channel, and though the squire laughed at these things, the kitchen-folk put a china saucer of the creamiest milk at night, outside the kitchen door, for the piskies. Several years pass and Essie is a young lady, her eyes lighting on Bartholemew, the squire’s 18 year old son, home from Rugby. She goes out at night to the standing stone on the edge of the woodland, placing some bread Bartholemew had been eating, but left unfinished on the stone, wrapped in a cut strand of her hair. The next day, Bartholemew coming to talk with her and looking approvingly at her with eyes a ‘dangerous blue of a sky when a storm is coming’, while she’d been cleaning out the grate in his bedroom.

Essie said he had such dangerous eyes. Soon Bartholemew went up to Oxford and when Essie’s ‘condition‘ of pregnancy was obvious, she was let go, but the infant was stillborn. So, as a favor to Essie’s mother, who was a very fine cook, the squire’s wife succeeded in having her husband return Essie to her position in the scullery. Despite this, Essie’s love had turned to hatred for Bartholemew and his family, within the year taking a new beau from a neighboring village with a bad reputation, going by Josiah Horner, and one night when the family slept, Essie got up in the night, and unlocked the side door to let Josiah in, rifling the house while the family slept undisturbed.

Suspicion immediately came of someone in the house, being obvious they must’ve opened the door (the squire’s wife distinctly recalling having bolted), and someone knowing where the squire kept his silver plate, and the drawer where he kept his coins and promissory notes. Still, Essie unwaveringly denies everything, and convicted of nothing until Josiah was caught in a chandler’s office in Exeter, passing one of the squire’s notes. The squire IDs it as his, and Horner and Tregowan go to trial. Horner was convicted at the local assizes, a court administering civil and criminal law where he was ‘turned off‘, slang of the time, but the judge taking pity on Essie, perhaps for her age or chestnut hair and sentenced to 7 years transportation on a ship called the Neptune, under Captain Clarke.

Essie goes to the Carolinas, and on the way makes an alliance with the captain, convincing him to return her to England with him as his wife, and take her to his mother’s house in London, where no man knew her. The journey back, after the human cargo had been traded for cotton and tobacco, was a calm time, and idyllic, since the captain and his new bride were lovebirds, as they do, courting, touching each other, and giving little gifts and endearments. When they reach London, Captain Clarke houses Essie with his mother and treats her as a mother-in-law. 8 weeks later, the Neptune sets sail and Essie waves goodbye from the dockside.

When returning to her mother-in-law’s house, the woman absent, Essie takes a length of silk, several gold coins, and a silver pot the woman had been keeping buttons, Essie then vanishing into London. Over the next 2 years, she’d become a successful shoplifter, using her wide skirts to conceal bolts of silk, and lace, living life to the fullest. Essie gave thanks for her escapes to all the creatures she’d been told of, the piskies who she felt influenced as far as London, placing a wooden bowl of milk on a window-ledge each night, despite her friends laughing at her, she having the last laugh when her friends got the pox or the clap, and Essie stayed in peak health. A year before her 20th birthday, fate deals her an ill hand, she sitting in Crossed Forks Inn off Fleet St, in Bell Yard, when she sees a young man come in and sit near the fireplace, fresh from the University.

Essie thinks, a pigeon ripe for the plucking, and sits next to him, saying what a fine young man he is, and stroking his knee, while her other hand searches for his pocket-watch, and then he looks her straight in the face, and her heart jumps, and sinks as she recognized Bartholemew, who says her name. She was transported to Newgate and charged with returning from transportation, found guilty, Essie shocking no one by pleading her belly, but when checked found she was, but she declining to name the father. Her sentence was commuted from death, to transportation for life. This time, she rides on the ship Sea-Maiden, 200 transportees on this ship, packed in the hold like fat hogs on their way to market.

Fluxes and fevers overran them, scarcely room to sit or lay, one woman died in childbirth in the back of the hold, and as people were pushed in too tightly to pass her body forward, she and the infant were forced out of a small porthole in the back into the sea. Essie was 8 months and somehow kept her life and child. From then on she would have nightmares of her time in this hold, wake up screaming with the taste and stench of the place in her throat. The Sea-Maiden lands at Norfolk in VA and Essie’s indenture was bought by a ‘small planter‘, a tobacco farmer called John Richardson, his wife having died of childbirth fever a week after giving birth to his daughter, and needed a wet-nurse and a maid of all work on his smallholding.

So Essie’s baby boy, Anthony, she said she named after her late husband (no one able to contradict her, maybe knowing an Anthony once), would only be breastfed after John’s daughter, Phyllida, who grew tall and strong, while Anthony was weak and rickety on what was left. Along with Essie’s milk, the children grew and drank her tales of the knockers and the blue-caps who live down the mines, of the Bucca, the trickiest spirit of the land, much more dangerous than the red-headed, snub-nosed piskies, for who a fresh-baked loaf of bread was always left in the field at reaping time, to ensure fine harvest. She told them of the apple-tree men - old apple trees who talked when they had a mind to, and who needed to be placated with the first cider of the crop, which was poured onto their roots as the year turned if they were to give a fine crop for the next year. She told them, in her pleasant Cornish drawl, which trees they should be wary of, in the old rhyme:

Elm, he do brood,
And Oak, he do hate,
But the Willow-man goes walking,
If you stays out late.

She told them all this, and they believed, since she believed. The farm prospered, and Essie placed a china saucer of milk outside the back door each night for piskies. After 8 months, John knocks quietly on Essie’s bedroom door asking for favors of the kind a woman shows a man, Essie saying she was shocked and hurt, a poor widow-woman, and indentured, no better a slave to be asked to prostitute herself who she had so much respect, an indentured slave not able to marry, so how could he think to torment an indentured transportee girl she couldn’t bring herself to think, bringing her to tears. John found himself apologizing, winding up getting on bended knee to Essie, and proposing to end her indenture and offer his hand in marriage.

Though she accepted, she wouldn’t sleep with him til it was legal, after moving from the little room in the attic to the master bedroom in the front of the house, and if some of John’s friends and their wives cut him off when next they saw him in town, many more of them were of the opinion his new wife was a damn fine-looking woman, and John had done quite well for himself. Within the year she had another boy, but as blond as his father and half-sister, naming him after his father. The 3 children went to the local church on Sundays to listen to the traveling preacher, and to the little school to learn their letters and numbers with the other children of small farmers, while Essie made sure they knew the mysteries of the piskies, which were the most important mysteries there were: red-headed men, with eyes and clothes as green as a river, turned-up noses, funny, squinting men who, given a mind to, would turn one, twist and lead one out of one’s way, unless carrying salt in one’s pocket, or a little bread. When the children went off to school, they each would carry a little salt in one pocket, a little bread in the other, the old symbols of life and the earth, to make sure they came safely home and they always had.

The children grew in the lush VA hills, tall and strong (accept Anthony, always weaker, paler, more prone to disease and bad airs), the family happy. Essie loved her husband the best she could, they married a decade when John developed a toothache so terrible he fell from his horse. When they went to the nearest town to get his tooth pulled, it was too late, blood poisoning taking his life, black-faced and groaning, buried beneath his favorite willow tree. The widow Richardson was left the farm to manage until John’s 2 children were of age: she managed the indentured servants and the slaves, and brought in the tobacco crop, year in and out.

She poured cider on the roots of the apple trees on New Year’s Eve, and placed a loaf of new-baked bread in the fields at harvest-time, and she always left a saucer of milk at the back door. The farm flourished, and Essie gained a reputation as a hard bargainer, but one whose crop was always good, and never sold shoddy for better merchandise. All went well for another decade, but after was a bad year, Anthony murdering Johnnie, his half-brother in a terrible fight over the future of the farm and Phyllida’s hand, some saying he hadn’t meant to kill his brother, and it was a foolish blow, which struck too deep, and some opposed. Anthony fled, leaving Essie to bury her younger son next to his father.

Some said Anthony fled to Boston, and some said he went south to Florida, his mother thinking he’d taken a ship to England to enlist in George’s army and fight the rebel Scots, but with both sons gone the farm was empty and sad, Phyllida pining as if her heart had been broken, nothing her stepmother saying putting a smile on her lips again, but heartbroken or not, they needed a man on the farm, so Phyllida married Harry Soames, a ship’s carpenter by profession and tired of the sea, dreaming of a life on land on a farm like the Lincolnshire farm which he’d grown up on, and although the Richardson’s farm was little like this, Harry found enough to make him happy. The 2 had 5 children, 3 living. Essie missed her sons and husband, although now little more than a memory of a fair man, who treated her kindly. Phyllida’s children would come to her for tales and she’d share stories of the Black Dog of the Moors and of Raw-Head and Bloody-Bones, or the Apple Tree Man, but they weren’t interested, only wanting tales of Jack up the Beanstalk, or Jack Giant-Killer, or Jack and his Cat and the King.

She loved the children like her own, although sometimes calling them by the names of those long dead. In May, she brought a chair to the kitchen garden to pick peas and shuck them in the sun. As she did, she thought how nice it’d be to walk the moors of Cornwall once more, then remembering other points of her life, including her first sons father, the warden in Newgate telling her she could escape the gallows if she were pregnant, turning to the wall and letting him have his way. Then someone calls her maiden name to her questioningly, she looking up and asking if she knew him, not having heard him approach.

The man wore all green, his hair carrot red, grinning lopsidedly, something about him making her happy to look at him and something else which gave the sense of danger. He replies, she could say she may know him. She asks if he’s a Cornishman, hearing a familiar accent, he agreeing, saying he’s a Cousin Jack, or he was, since being in this new world, nobody put out ale, or milk for an honest fellow or loaf of bread come harvest time. Essie steadies the bowl of peas she’d been shucking in her lap, she stating, if he’s who she thinks he is, she has no quarrel with him, then in the house hearing Phyllida grumble to the housekeeper.

He agrees, not with her, though she and a few like her who’d brought him to this land with no time for magic, and no place for piskies and such folk. She replies he’d done her many a good turn, he replying good and ill, they like the wind, blowing both ways. Essie nods, he then asking if she’d take his hand, using her full name again, she not seeing well these days, but seeing the hairs on the back of his hand. She bites her lip, then hesitantly places her hand in his, she still warm when they found her, but her life having fled her body, the peas half-shelled.

Utrennyaya was the only one awake to say goodbye to them Saturday morning. She took Wed’s $45 and insisted writing a receipt on the back of an expired soft-drink coupon. Wed kisses her hand and thanks her for their hospitality, formally, calling her dear lady. She and her lovely sister remaining radiant as the sky itself.

She responds with, he’s a bad old man, shaking a finger at him then giving him a hug. She tells him to keep safe, not wanting to hear he was gone for good. Wed agrees he shared these sentiments equally for himself. She shakes Shadow’s hand, sharing Polunochnaya thought highly of him, and Utrennyaya also, Shadow thanking her as well as for dinner.

She raised an eyebrow and questions, he liked? He should come back. Shadow and Wed walk downstairs, and when Shadow puts his hands in his pockets, his hand finds the silver dollar, bigger and heavier than any coins he had used. He classic-palms it, it feeling natural between his forefinger and little finger. Wed states, smoothly done and Shadow replied he’s only learning, knowing the technical side, but the hardest bit having people look at the wrong hand.

Wed replies, is this right, and Shadow affirming misdirection the official term. Shadow fumbling a back palm and the coin bouncing half a flight down the stairs, Wed picking it up. Wed states Shadow couldn’t afford to be careless with people’s gifts something like this, he needed to hang on to, don’t throw it around. Wed looks at both sides of the coin stating Lady Liberty being beautiful, isn’t she, tossing it to Shadow, who picks it from the air, and did a slide vanish, seeming to drop it into his left hand, and appearing to pocket it, the coin sitting in his right hand in plain view, feeling comfortable there.

Wed states Lady Liberty was like so many gods America hold dear, a foreigner, this case, a Frenchwoman (formerly brown from new details, symbolizing the end of slavery), the French covering up her fantastic bosom on the statue they presented NY. Interrupting himself to kick a used condom from his path stating someone could trip and break their necks, like a banana peel, but with bad taste and irony added. He pushes the door and the sun finds them, the world colder then how it looked indoors, Shadow wondering if they’ll get more snow. Wed continues, Liberty a bitch who must be bedded on a mattress of corpses.

Shadow asks, yeah? Wed clarifying he’d been quoting someone French, the statue a bitch who liked to be fucked on the trash from the tumbril (an open cart tilted backward to empty its load, particular to the use of condemned prisoners to the guillotine during the French Revolution). Wed declares she can hold her torch as high as she wanted, rats still in her dress and jizz dripping down her leg, he unlocking the car and pointing Shadow to the passenger seat. Shadow states he thought she was beautiful, the coin’s face reminding him of Polunochnaya a little.

Wed replies as he drives away, this was the eternal folly of man, chasing after the sweet flesh without realizing it’s merely the pretty cover for bones. At night, rubbing himself against worm food, no offense meant. Shadow asks Wed, so he wasn’t American? Wed replying no one was, not originally, which was his point.

He looks at his watch and states having several hours to kill before the banks closed, he commending Shadow with his good job with Czerno, saying he would’ve closed on he agreeing eventually, but Shadow enlisting him more wholeheartedly than he ever could have. Shadow responds, only because Czerno gets to kill him after, Wed replying, not necessarily, Shadow having pointed out, he’s old and the killing stroke may only leave him possibly paralyzed for life, perhaps. So Shadow had much to look forward to should Czerno survive the coming difficulties. Shadow asks, there’s some question about this, Wed declaring fuck yes, pulling into a parking lot of a bank, stating this is the bank he’d rob, not closing for another few hours, and they should go in and say hi.

Shadow gets out reluctantly, Wed following not wanting his face to be on camera if the old man was planning something stupid, but he pulled by curiosity, walking into the bank. He looks down, rubbing his nose, trying to keep his face hidden. Wed asks for deposit forms from the single teller, she pointing to them. Wed then asks if they were the same for night deposits, she confirming, asking if he knew where the night deposit slot was, and stating where he’d locate it, Wed thanking her.

He takes several forms, then grinned a goodbye, Shadow and he walking back out. They stood on the sidewalk as Wed scratched his beard meditatively, then walking to the ATM and to the night safe set in the wall, inspecting them. He then leads Shadow to the supermarket across the road, buying a fudgsicle for himself and a cup of hot chocolate for Shadow. Near the entryway was a payphone set in the wall, Wed writes down the phone # of the pay phone.

They return across the street, Wed saying they needed a snow, a good, driving, irritating one, and requested Shadow to think ‘snow‘ for him, clarifying when Shadow seemed confused, concentrate on making the big clouds, indicating some in the West, to get bigger and darker. Think gray skies, and driving winds coming down from the arctic, think snow. Shadow states he didn’t think it’d do any good, but Wed responds, nonsense, if anything, it’ll keep his mind occupied, as he unlocks the car door, stating they were next going to Kinko’s, hurry up. So Shadow occupies with thinking about snow as he sipped his cocoa in the passenger seat.

When they reached Kinko’s, they go in and Wed has the clerk photo copy the deposit slips and 10 sets of business cards, Shadow’s head starting to ache, an uncomfortable feeling between his shoulder blades, wondering if he slept wrong, caused by the sofa. Next, Wed was composing a letter at the computer, and the clerk helping him make large-sized signs. Then he hands Shadow a cup of Kinko’s coffee with dry non-dairy creamer as he’s still thinking of snow and says he thinks it’s enough snow, doesn’t Shadow? He not having noticed the gray sky snow definitely coming.

Wed says to drink the coffee, which was foul, but would help the headache, and good work. Wed paid and carried the signs, letters, and cards out to the car, opening the trunk and putting the papers in a large black metal case like the one’s carried by payroll guards, closing the trunk. He passes a business card to Shadow, who reads it, and asks who is the name listed with the title of Director of Security, A1 Security Services, Wed stating, he was. When Shadow asks what the A for A. Haddock stood for, Wed stating, he’d leave it up to him, he saying he was James O’Gorman, having a card, as well.

They get back in the car, Wed saying if he could imagine A. Haddock, as well as the snow, they’d have enough cash for him to wine and dine his friends. Shadow reminds, he wasn’t returning to prison, not doing anything illegal, Wed listing off the smallish crimes, and saying, not to worry, he’d come out smelling like a rose. Shadow responds, is this before or after his elderly Slavic Charles Atlas crushes his skull with one blow, Wed replying reassuringly of his eyesight going, probably missing Shadow completely. Since they still had a little time to kill, since banks close midday Saturdays, would he like lunch, Shadow agreeing, saying he starving.

Wed had a spot in mind and hums an unidentifiable song to Shadow as he drove, Shadow strangely proud of the snowflakes he’d imagined into existence. Rationally he knew he hadn’t anything to do with the snow, like the silver dollar he carried had never been the moon, but still… They stop at a large shed-like building with a sign All-U-Can-Eat lunch buffet $4.99, Wed declaring he loves this place. Shadow asks, good food, the reply, not really, but the ambience unmissable.

The ambience referred was the business at the rear of the Shadow, with a hanging flag stating, Bankrupt and Liquidated Stock Clearance Depot. Shadow orders fried chicken and enjoys it, Wed returning to the car and reappearing with a small case, taking it to the men’s room. Shadow not in a hurry to learn what Wed was up to and thinking he’d know soon enough, peruses the liquidation aisles seeing the variety of items for sale. From knick knacks and collectible dolls or souvenirs both seasonal/holiday as well as canned food, Bill Clinton presidential wristwatches, shoes and galoshes, and Shadow’s favorite, a snowman kit, only needing a carrot to be added.

Wed ask when he’d come out of the bathroom, wasn’t it a wonderful place, drying his hands on a handkerchief, saying there weren’t paper towels, Shadow commenting how he looked like a security guard. Wed replies, what could he possibly say other than commend him for his insight, suggesting they return to town, it perfect timing for their bank robbery, then having a little spending money. Shadow replies how most people would merely take it from the ATM, Wed admitting this was more or less what he planned. Wed parks at the supermarket lot and gets the metal case and clipboard from the trunk, along with handcuffs, putting one on his wrist and the other to the case handle.

After putting a blue cap on, and a velcro patch with A1 Security on both hat, and patch, he places the deposit slips on his clipboard, then slouches and changes his appearance. Wed then instructs Shadow do some shopping and wait at the payphone after, advising if anyone asks, he’s waiting for a call from his girlfriend whose car broke down. To complete his look, Wed puts on faded pink earmuffs to endear himself, then walks across the street as Shadow watched. Wed tapes a large red Out of Order notice on the ATM and red ribbon across the deposit slot.

A young woman walks up to use the ATM and Wed turns her away. Then a car pulls up, and a man gets out holding a gray sack and a key, Wed apologizing to him and has him sign the clipboard, checks his deposit slip, writes him a receipt, and places the man’s sack in his suitcase. The man takes his receipt and gets back in his warm car, driving away. Wed returns across the street and buys himself a coffee at the supermarket, then returns across the street to collect peoples deposits for Saturday.

Shadow likened to watching a silent movie, then the cops pull up, Shadow’s heart sinking and Wed tipping his cap as they walk over, shaking hands, slipping the letter and business card through the car window, sipping his coffee. The payphone rings, and Shadow picks up trying to sound bored as he said, A1 Security Services, and confirming Jimmy O’Gorman’s presence at the bank, a small backstory given to personalize his character’s reality. He concludes the call successfully and watches as the cops drive off, and Wed continues taking a line of peoples money. Before and after the call, the supermarket manager had checked in with Shadow when he’d told him about the girlfriend with car trouble, he replying, hope she’s worth waiting for, when Shadow confirms the manager’s guess of it being the battery being correct, and he only having to wait, the manager saying, women.

As the sky darkened Wed decides when to take down the Out of Order sign and walks back across the street, Shadow waiting a minute before following and meeting him in the car, seeing Wed sitting in the back having opened the black case, and methodically laying everything out on the backseat in piles. Wed instructs Shadow drive, they heading to a different branch of the same bank. Shadow asks if it’s risky to push his luck, but Wed states, not at all, they’re doing a little banking. As Shadow drove, Wed took some of the cash from different deposits and left the checks, putting the leftovers in the deposit slots at the different bank.

When Wed returned to the car, he tells Shadow to head for the highway. As Shadow drove, Wed measures out of a stack of cash and hands it to Shadow as his first week’s payment, Shadow pocketing it without counting (probably due to driving). Snow spun outside and Wed states this is the only country in the world worrying about what it is, Wed continuing with the rest of them knowing what they are. Shadow asks, and?, and Wed states he’s only thinking aloud, when they stop for gas, Wed going to the men’s room in uniform and coming out in a pale suit and Italian-looking brown coat.

Shadow asks where he’d be heading, Wed stating they’d all be meeting at the House on the Rock. They were soon off the highway and driving on country roads, after nearly an hour, they turn on a narrow driveway, past several giant, snow-dusted flowerpots entwined with lizard-like dragons, the tree-lined parking lot nearly empty. Wed mentions it’d be closing soon, Shadow asking in response, what the place is, as they walk toward the unimpressive wooden building. Wed states it’s a roadside attraction, one of the finest, which means it’s a place of power.

Shadow is confused, so Wed elaborates, saying it’s perfectly simple, in other countries, over the years, people recognized the places of power, sometimes it’s a natural formation, sometimes only a place, which was somehow special. They knew something important was happening there, some focusing point, a channel, a window to the Imminent, and so they’d build temples or cathedrals, or erect stone circles, he thinking Shadow should get the idea. Shadow replies, churches are all across the states though, to which Wed responds by affirming, in every town, sometimes every block, and as significant as, in this context, dentists offices. No, in the U.S., people still get the call, some feeling called to by the transcendent void, and they respond to it by building a model from beer bottles of somewhere they’d never been, or erecting a giant bat-house in a part of the country bats traditionally decline to visit.

Roadside attraction, people feel being pulled to places where in other parts of the world, they’d recognize the part of themselves, which is truly transcendent, and buy a hot dog and walk around, feeling satisfied on a level they can’t describe, and profoundly dissatisfied on a level beneath this. Shadow responds how Wed had some whacked-out theories, Wed responding there wasn’t anything theoretical about it, he should’ve figured this out by now. They walk up to the only ticket window, the girl nonsensically greeting them by saying they stop selling tickets in half hour, then adding it takes at least 2 hours to walk around, y’see. Wed pays in cash, Shadow asking where the rock was, Wed replying, under the house.

Shadow asks, where’s the house, Wed putting a finger to his lips and they walk forward, farther in a player piano was playing what was meant to be Ravel’s ‘Balero‘. The place seemed to have been a geometrically reconfigured 1960s bachelor pad, with open stonework, pile carpeting and magnificently ugly mushroom-shaped stained glass lampshades. Up a winding staircase was another room, filled with knick knacks. Wed states they say this was build by Frank Lloyd Wright’s evil twin, Frank Lloyd Wrong, chuckling at his joke.

Shadow states he’d seen this on a t-shirt, they going up and down more stairs, now in a long, long room made of glass, protruding, needlelike, out over the leafless black-and-white countryside hundreds of feet below them. Shadow stood and watched the snow tumble and spin, asking again, this is the House on the Rock, confused, Wed replying more or less. This being the Infinity Room, part of the actual house, although a late addition, but no, they not having scratched the tiniest surface of what the house has to offer. Shadow responds by mentioning, according to his theory, Walt Disney World would be the holiest place in America.

Wed comments, frowning and stroking his beard, Disney had bought some orange groves in the middle of FL and built a tourist town on it, no magic there, though he thinks there may be something real in the original Disneyland. There may be some power there, although twisted, and hard to access (I’d heard about this specific to Cinderella’s castle), but definitely nothing out of the ordinary about Disney World, some parts of FL filled with real magic, though. If keeping one’s eyes open, the mermaids of Weeki Wachee, he trailing off and to follow him. Everywhere there was music, jangling, awkward, very slightly offbeat and out of time.

Wed took $5 and put it in a change machine, receiving brass-colored metal coins, tossing one to Shadow, who catches it and realizes a small boy was watching him, so he vanishes it. The boy ran to his mother, who was inspecting a typical Santa Claus statue, a sign stating, Over 6000 On Display!, he tugging on the hem of her coat urgently. Shadow follows Wed outside briefly, then following signs to the Streets of Yesterday. Wed informs how 40 years ago Alex Jordan, his face on the token he tossed him, started building a house on a high jut of rock in a field he didn’t own, and couldn’t have said why, people coming to see him construct it, the curious, and puzzled, and neither who couldn’t tell why they’d come.

So he did what any sensible American male of his generation would do, he started charging money, nothing much, maybe a nickel, or quarter, and continued building, and the people kept coming. So he took this money and made something even bigger and stranger, building these warehouses on the land beneath the house and filled them with things for people to see. They coming to see them, millions coming every year. Shadow asks why, and Wed answers with a smile, walking into the dimly lit, tree-lined Streets of Yesterday.

Prim-lipped Victoria china dolls staring in large quantity through dusty store windows. Walking on cobblestones, darkness of the roof above them, jangling mechanical music in the background. They pass a box of broken puppets, and an overgrown golden music box in a glass case, also passing the dentist’s and the drugstore with sign,

RESTORE POTENCY! USE O’LEARY’S MAGNETICAL BELT!

At the end of the street was a large glass box with a female mannequin inside dressed as a gypsy, fortune-teller.

Wed booms over the mechanical music, Now, at the start of any quest or enterprise, it’s their duty to consult the Norns, so let them designate this Sybil the Urd (a reference to the Well of Fate), dropping a brass-colored House on the Rock coin into the slot. With jagged mechanical motions the gypsy raises and lowers her arm, a slip of paper chunked from the slot. Wed takes it, reads, grunts, and folds it to place in his pocket. Shadow asks, wasn’t he going to show his, he’d show Wed his, Wed responding stiffly, a man’s fortune is his own affair, he wouldn’t ask to see Shadow’s.

Shadow puts his coin in the slot and takes the slip of paper, reading:

EVERY ENDING IS A NEW BEGINNING. YOUR LUCKY # IS NONE. YOUR LUCKY COLOR IS DEAD. MOTTO: LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON.

Shadow makes a face and folds the fortune, placing it in his inside pocket. They go further in, down a red corridor, past rooms filled with empty chairs upon which rested violins and violas and cellos, which played themselves, or seemed to, when fed a coin. Shadow observed with mocking humor the bows of the stringed instruments, played by mechanical arms, didn’t touch the strings, which were loose or missing, wondering if the sounds he heard were made by wind and percussion or there were recordings, as well.

They walked for what felt like miles when getting to a room called the Mikado, one wall a 19th century pseudo-Oriental nightmare, beetle-browed mechanical drummers bang cymbals and drums while staring out from their dragon-encrusted lair. Currently, they were majestically torturing St.-Saens’s ‘Danse Macabre‘. Czerno sat on a bench in the wall facing the Mikado machine, tapping out the time with his fingers, pipes fluting, bells jingling. Wed sits next to him, Shadow deciding to slay standing, Czerno offering to shake both their hands, saying, well met, then returned sitting appearing to enjoy the muse.

The ‘Danse Macabre‘ came to a tempestuous and discordant end, all the artificial instruments being ever-so-slightly out of tune adding to the otherworldliness of the place, a new piece starting. Czerno asks how the bank robbery was, did it go well, standing reluctantly to leave the Mikado’s thundering, jangling music. Wed responds, slick as a snake in a barrel of butter. Czerno offers how he gets a pension from the slaughterhouse and doesn’t ask for more, Wed replying it won’t last forever, nothing does.

More corridors and musical machines, Shadow becomes aware they weren’t following the path through the rooms intended for tourists, seeming to follow a different route of Wed’s devising. They go down a slope and Shadow, confused, wondered if they’d already been this way. Czerno grasps Shadow’s arm and says, quickly, come here, pulling him to a large glass box by a wall containing a diorama of a tramp asleep in a churchyard in front of a church door, the label calling it, THE DRUNKARD’S DREAM, it explaining it’s a 19th century penny-in-the-slot machine, originally from an English railway station. The coin slot was modified to allow the brass House on the Rock coins.

Czerno instructs Shadow to put a coin in, Shadow asking why, Czerno saying he must see, he’ll show him. Shadow puts the coin in, and the drunk in the graveyard raises his bottle to his lips, one gravestone flipping over, revealing a grasping corpse, a headstone turns around, flowers replaced by a grinning skull. A wraith appears on the right of the church, while on the left, something with a half glimpsed pointed, unsettling bird-like face, a pale Boschian nightmare, glided smoothly from a headstone into the shadows and was gone. Then the church door opened, a priest came out, and the ghosts, haunts, and corpses vanished, and only the priest and the drunk were left alone in the graveyard.

The priest looked down at the drunk disdainfully, and backed through the open door, which closed behind him, leaving the drunk on his own. The clockwork story was deeply unsettling, Czerno asking Shadow, did he know why he showed this to him, Shadow saying no. Czerno replies, this was the world as it is, the real world, it’s there in this box. They wander through a blood-colored room filled with old theatrical organs, hug organ pipes, and what appeared to be enormous copper brewing vats, liberated from a brewery.

Shadow asks where they’re going, Czerno replying, the carousel. Shadow states, they’ve passed signs for the carousel a dozen time already, Czerno responding, he goes this way, we travel a spiral, the quickest way sometimes the longest. Shadow’s feet were starting to hurt and he found this sentiment unlikely. A mechanical machine played ‘Octopus Garden‘, in a room going up many stories the center filled with a replica of a great black whale-like beast, with life-sized replica of a boat in its fiberglass mouth.

They pass to a Travel Hall where they see the car covered with tiles, and functioning Rube Goldberg chicken device, and rusting Burma Shave ads on the wall. They then were at the bottom of a ramp with an ice cream shop in front of them, open but the girl washing the surfaces having closed look, so they walk past the pizzeria-cafeteria, empty but for an elderly black man wearing a bright check suit and canary-yellow gloves. He was small, and eating a many-scooped ice cream sundae, drinking a supersize mug of coffee. Black cigarillo burning in the ashtray in front of him, Wed tells Shadow to get 3 coffees, he off to the bathroom.

Shadow buys and takes the coffees to where Czerno was sitting with the old black man, smoking a cigarette like he was scared to be caught. The black man meanwhile, happily toying with his sundae, mostly ignoring his cigarillo, but as Shadow headed toward them, picks it up, inhales deeply and making two smoke rings one large, and the smaller passing through the first, he grinning like he was pleasantly surprised and pleased with himself. Czerno introduces Shadow to Mister Nancy, the old man standing and thrusting his yellow-gloved hand out, saying good to meet him, and knew who he must be, working for the old one-eye bastard, a faint twang and patois which may be West Indian. Shadow confirms and formally invites him to sit, Czerno inhales on his cigarette and states gloomily how he thought their kind like cigarettes so much for being reminded of the offerings which were once burned for them, the smoke rising as they sought their approval or favor.

Nancy states in response they never giving him nothing like this, best he could hope for was a pile of fruit to eat, maybe curry goat, something slow and cold and tall to drink, and a big old high-titty woman to keep him company. He grinned white teeth and winked at Shadow, Czerno commenting how these days they have nothing. Nancy states he doesn’t get anywhere near as much fruit as he had, his eyes shining, but nothing out there in the world for his money could beat a big old high-titty woman, some folk saying it’s the booty one should inspect first, but he’s telling him it’s the titties, which still cranks his engine on a cold morning. Nancy starts laughing, a wheezing, rattling good-natured laugh, and Shadow found himself liking the old man despite himself.

Wed returns from the bathroom and shakes hands with Nancy, then asks Shadow if he wanted something to eat, offering pizza or a sandwich. Shadow replies he isn’t hungry, Nancy responding, let him tell Shadow something, it could be a long time between meals, someone offers food, say yes, he no longer young as he was, but can tell him this, never say no to the opportunity to piss, eat, or get half hour’s shut-eye. Does Shadow follow, which he confirms and responds he’s really not hungry. Nancy states Shadow’s a big one, looking into Shadow’s light-gray eyes, Nancy’s the color of mahogany, he continuing Shadow’s a tall drink of water, but he has to tell him, he doesn’t look too bright, he has a son, stupid as a man who bought his stupid at a 2-for-1 sale, and Shadow reminded him of him.

Shadow responds if he didn’t mind, he’ll take this as a compliment, Nancy asking, being called dumb as a man who slept late the mornin’ they handed out brains? Shadow responding, being compared to a member of his family, Nancy stubbing out his cigarillo and flicking an imaginary bit of ash from his yellow gloves and replying he may not be the worst choice old one-eye could’ve made, come to this, looking up at Wed. Nancy asks him if he has any idea how many of them there’ll be there tonight. Wed respond, he’d sent the message to everyone he could find, and obviously not everyone will be able to come, but thinks they can confidently expect several dozen of them, and the word will travel.

They make their way past a display of suits of armor, Wed stating, Victorian fake, as they pass the glass display, modern fake, 12th century helm on a 17th century reproduction, 15th century left gauntlet, and then Wed pushes through an exit door, circled them around outside the building as Nancy states, he can’t be doing with all these ins and outs, not as young as he used to be, and he comes from warmer climes, as they walk along a covered walkway, in through another exit door, and they were in the Carousel room. Calliope music played: a Strauss waltz, stirring and occasionally discordant, the wall as they enter was hung with antique carousel horses, hundreds of them, some in need of paint, others needing dusting, and above them hanging dozens of winged angels constructed rather obviously from female store window mannequins, some baring sexless breasts, some having lost their wigs and staring baldly and blindly down from the darkness. Then there was the Carousel, a sign proclaiming it was the largest in the world, with the weight, how many thousand light bulbs would be found in the chandeliers, which hung in gothic profusion, and forbade anyone climb on it or riding the animals, and such animals! Shadow stares, impressed in spite of himself, at the hundred of life-sized creatures who circled on the platform of the carousel.

Real and imaginary creatures, along with transformations of the two, each one different, he saw mermaid and merman, centaur and unicorn, elephants (one huge and one tiny), bulldog, frog, and phoenix, manticore, basilisk, swans pulling a carriage, a white ox, twin walruses, even a sea-serpent, all brightly colored and more than real, each riding the platform as the waltz came to an end and a new one started, the carousel not slowing down. Shadow asked what it’s for, if no one ever rides it, Wed replying it wasn’t there to be ridden, not by people, it’s there to be admired, there to be. Mr. Nancy adds like a prayer wheel going around, and around, accumulating power. Shadow then asks where they were meeting everyone, he thought they were meeting there, but the place was empty.

Wed grins his scary grin and responds, he’s asking too many questions, when he’s paid to ask none, Shadow apologizing, and Wed then instructing him to stand in a particular spot and help them up. Wed walks up to the Carousel, near a side of the platform warning it’s not to be ridden. Each man climbs onto the circling Carousel, Wed extremely heavy, Nancy the opposite, and Czerno only using Shadow’s shoulder to get on himself. Wed next barks at Shadow, isn’t he coming, Shadow seeming more concerned breaking the rules here than aiding and abetting the bank robbery earlier in the day.

Each old man selected a mount, Wed choosing a golden wolf, Czerno on an armored centaur, face hidden by metal helmet, and Nancy chuckling, slithered onto the back of an enormous, leaping lion, captured by sculptor mid-roar, Nancy patting the side of the lion. The Strauss waltz carries them around, majestically, Wed smiling, Nancy laughing delightedly with an old man cackle, and even Czerno seeming to enjoy himself. Shadow felt like a weight was lifted from his back, the 3 old men enjoying themselves as they rode the biggest carousel. Shadow looks at the other creatures, climbing onto the back of one with an eagle’s head and a tiger’s body, holding tight.

He felt like a child again with the lights from the chandeliers glinting, happy and staying perfectly still, at the center of everything, the world revolving around him, he then hearing himself laugh, it felt like the last day and a half hadn’t happened, or even the last 3 years, his life evaporating into the daydream of a small child riding the carousel in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. His first trip back to the states on a long journey by ship and car, his mother standing and watching him proudly, as he sucked a melting Popsicle, holding tightly and hoping the music wouldn’t stop, the carousel never slowing and the ride wouldn’t end, going around and around again, then the lights go out and Shadow saw the gods. One moment Shadow’s riding the Carousel on the eagle-headed tiger, the next after the lights go out, he’s falling through an ocean of stars, the mechanical waltz replaced by a pounding rhythmic roll and crash, as of cymbals or the breakers on the shores of a far ocean. The only light came form stars illuminating everything with cold clarity, beneath him his mount stretched and padded, warm fur under Shadow’s left hand, feathers beneath his right.

A voice from behind him from his mind asking, it’s a good ride, isn’t it, Shadow turning slowly. The images of himself captured every moment and lasted infinitely, seeing the world like the multi-faceted eyes of a dragonfly, each image completely different, Shadow unable to piece them in a way he could make sense of, or what he thought he was seeing into something comprehensible. Shadow looked at Mr. Nancy, old black man with pencil mustache, check sports jacket and lemon-yellow gloves, riding the carousel as it rose and lowered, at the same time, in the same place, he saw a jeweled spider as high as a horse, its eyes emerald, strutting and staring down at him, simultaneously seeing an extraordinarily tall man with deep golden-brown skin and 3 sets of arms, wearing a flowing ostrich-feather headdress, his face painted with red stripes, riding an irritated golden lion, 2 of his 6 hands holding onto the beast’s mane, he also saw a young black boy dressed in rags, his left foot swollen and crawling with black flies, and lastly behind all these things seeing a tiny brown spider, hiding under a withered ochre leaf. Shadow saw all of these and knew they were the same, Nancy saying if Shadow doesn’t close his mouth something’s goin’ to fly in, Shadow complying and shutting his mouth as he saw all of them speak, swallowing hard.

There was a wooden hall on a hill a mile or so from them, they were trotting toward it, their mounts hooves and feet silently padding on dry sand at the sea’s edge. Czerno trots up on his centaur, tapping the human arm, and saying sadly to Shadow none of this is really happening, is all in his head, and best not to think of it. Shadow saw a gray-haired old Eastern European immigrant, with a shabby raincoat and one iron-colored tooth, but he also saw a squat black thing, darker than the darkness surrounding them, its eyes two burning coals, also seeing a prince with long flowing black hair, and long black mustaches, blood on his hands and face, riding a naked, but for bearskin over his shoulder, on a creature half man, half beast, its face and torso blue-tattooed, with spirals and swirls. Shadow asks who and what he was he as their mounts padded along the shore, waves barking and crashing on the night beach.

Wed guides his wolf now a huge and charcoal-gray beast with green eyes over to Shadow, who’s beast half turns away from it, Shadow patting it's neck and telling it not to be scared, tiger tail swishing aggressively. Shadow then realizes there’s another wolf twin to the one Wed rode keeping pace with them in the sand dunes a moment out of sight. Wed asks if Shadow knew him, right eye glittering and flashing, left one dull as he rode his wolf with head held high, wearing a cloak with a deep monk-like cowl, face staring out from the shadows. Wed says he told him he’d share his names, this is what they call him, he is called Glad-of-War, Grim, Raider, and Third One-eyed, Highest, and True-Guesser, he is Grimnir, and the Hooded One, he is All-Father and Gondlir Wand-bearer, he having as many names as there are winds, as many titles as there are ways to die.

His ravens are Huginn and Muninn: Thought and Memory, his wolves are Freki and Geri, his horse is the gallows. Two ghostly gray ravens, like transparent skins of birds landed on Wed’s shoulders, pushing their beaks into the side of Wed’s head like they were tasting his mind, and flapped out into the world once more. Shadow thinks to himself, what should he believe, the voice coming back from somewhere deep beneath the world in a bass rumble, answering, believe everything. Shadow questions, Odin?

Wed answers in a whisper, repeating ‘Odin‘ a few times, soon shouting the name triumphantly. Then just as a dream, they weren’t riding toward the distant hall, but were there already, mounts tied in a shelter beside the hall. The hall was huge, but primitive, roof thatched and walls wooden, a fire burning in the center of the hall, the smoke stinging Shadow’s eyes. Mr. Nancy states they should’ve done this in his mind, not Wed’s, it would’ve been warmer there.

Shadow asks they were in his mind, the answer, more or less, this Valaskjalf, his old hall. Shadow was relieved Nancy was his human form again, but his Shadow shivering and shaking, changing in the flames, not always entirely human. There were wooden benches against the walls, and sitting or standing beside them were perhaps 10 people, keeping their distance from each other, one dark-skinned woman in a sari, several shabby-looking businessmen, and others too close to the fire for Shadow to determine. Wed asks where were they to Nancy fiercely, saying there should be scored dozens, Nancy responding Wed had done all the inviting, and it’s a wonder he got as many as he did there, then asks if he should tell a story to get things started, Wed shakes his head, stating out of the question.

Nancy responds they not looking very friendly a story a good way of getting someone on your side, and Wed didn’t have a bard to sing them. Wed insists no stories, not yet, later there’ll be time, not now. Nancy accedes, then states he’ll be the warm-up man, striding into the firelight with an easy smile, and starting by stating, he knows what they’re all thinking, what is Compe Anansi doing coming out to talk to all of them when the All-father called them like Nancy there. Well sometimes people needed reminding of things, he looking around when he came in and thinking, Where’s the rest of us?, but then thinking, just because we’re few and the others so many, we’re weak, and they powerful, it doesn’t mean we’re lost.

One time he’d seen Tiger down at the waterhole, he had the biggest testicles of any animal, and the sharpest claws, and 2 front teeth as long as knives, and as sharp as blades, and he said to him, Brother Tiger, go for a swim, he’ll look after his balls for him. He was so proud of his balls, so he got into the waterhole to swim and Nancy put on his balls and left him his own little spider-balls, then he ran as fast as his legs would take him. He didn’t stop until reaching the next town and saw Old Monkey there, who states Anansi looked mighty fine, he responding, did he know what they all singin’ in the town over there? Old Monkey asks, what, he stating they singin’ the funniest song, he doing a dance and singing, Tiger’s balls, yeah, I ate Tiger’s balls
Now ain’t nobody gonna stop me ever at all
Nobody put me up against the big black wall
Cos I ate that Tiger’s testimonials
I ate Tiger’s balls.

Old Monkey laughs til he’s holding his side and shaking and stamping, then singing the first line of the song himself, snapping his fingers, spinning on his 2 feet, declaring it’s a fine song. He says he’s going to sing it to all his friends, Anansi encouraging him, he then going back to the watering hole. He sees Tiger down by the watering hole, walking up and down, tail switching and swishing, and his ears and the fur on his neck up, snapping at every insect, coming by with his huge old saber-teeth, and his eyes flashing orange fire. He looked mean and scary and big, but dangling between his legs, there’s the littlest balls in the littlest, blackest, most wrinkledy ball-sack one ever saw.

Tiger says, hey Anansi, when he sees him, he was supposed to be guarding his balls while he went to swim, but when he got out of the swimming hole, there was nothing on the side of the bank, but these little black shriveled-up good-for-nothing spider balls he’s wearing. Anansi responds he done his best, but it was those monkeys, they come by and eat his balls all up, and when he tells them off, then they pulled off his own little balls, and he was so ashamed he ran away. Tiger declares Anansi is a liar and he’s going to eat his liver, but then he hears the monkeys coming from the town to the watering hole. A happy dozen monkeys, bopping down the path clicking their fingers and singing as loud as they could sing the song Anansi made up.

Tiger growls and roars, and he’s off into the forest after them, the monkeys screeching and heading for the highest trees, and Anansi scratches his nice new big balls, and damn they felt good hanging between his skinny legs, and walking home, and even today Tiger keeps chasing monkeys. So everyone remember, just because one is small doesn’t mean one doesn’t have power. Nancy smiles and bows his head and spreads his hands, accepting the applause and laughter like a pro, then turning and walking back to there Shadow and Czerno were standing. Wed asks, he thought he said no stories, Nancy replies, he calls this a story?

He barely cleared his throat he only warmed them up for him go knock them dead. Wed walks out into the firelight, a big old man with a glass eye and stand there for longer than Shadow could believe someone could be comfortable saying nothing, looking at the people on the wooden, benches. Then he says, they knew him, some of them having no cause to love him and he couldn’t blame them, but either way they knew him. There’s a stirring among the people on the benches as he continued, he’s been here longer than most of them, and like them, he’d thought they could get by on what they had, not enough to make them happy, but enough to continue, this may not be the case anymore.

There was a storm coming, and not one they’ve made, he pauses and crosses his arms. When the people came to the U.S., they brought them with them, they brought All-Father, Loki, and Thor, Anansi and the Lion-God, Leperchauns and Cluracans and Banshees, Kubera and Frau Holle and Ashtaroth, and they brought them. They’d rode here in their minds, and they’d taken root, they traveling with the settlers to the new lands across the ocean. The land is vast and soon enough their people abandoned them, remembering them only as creatures of the old land, as things which hadn’t come with them to the new.

Their true believers passed on or stopped believing, and they were left, lost and scared, dispossessed, to get by on what little bits of worship or belief they could find, and get by the best they could. So this is what they’ve done, gotten by, on the edges of things, where no one is watching them too closely. They have, they must face it, little influence. They prey on them and take from them and get by, stripping and whoring and drinking too much, pumping gas, stealing, cheating and existing in the cracks at the edges of society, old gods here in this land without gods.

Wed pauses, looking from one to another of his listeners gravely and statesmanlike. They stare back impassively, like masks and unreadable, Wed clearing his throat, spitting hard into the fire, it flaring and flaming, illuminating the hall. He continues, now as all of them have had reasons galore to discover for themselves, there were new gods growing in the U.S., clinging to growing knots of belief, gods of credit card and freeway, internet and telephone, radio, hospital, and television, gods of plastic, beeper and neon. Proud, fat and foolish gods, creatures puffed up with their own newness and importance.

They’re aware of them and fear them and hate them, Odin says, we fooling ourselves if we believe otherwise, and they’ll destroy us if they can. It’s time we band together, for them to act. The old woman in the red sari steps into the firelight, on her forehead, a small dark blue jewel, she says, he called them here for this nonsense?, she snorts in amusement mingled with irritation. Wed’s brows lower saying, he called them here, yes, but this is sense, Mama-ji, not nonsense, even a child could see this.

She answers, so she is a child, is she?, wagging a finger at him she was old in Kalighat before he was dreamt of, foolish man, she is a child?, then she is a child, for there’s nothing in his foolish talk to see. Shadow has another moment of double-vision, seeing the old woman, her face pinched with age and disapproval, but behind her he saw something huge, a naked woman with skin as black as a new leather jacket, and lips and tongue the bright red of arterial blood, around her neck skulls, and her many hands held knives, and swords, and severed heads. Wed concedes peaceably, he not calling her a child, Mama-ji, but seeming self-evident, she interrupting, the only thing seeming self-evident, pointing, as behind her, through her, above her, a black finger, sharp-taloned, pointed in echo, is his own desire for glory. They’ve lived in peace in this country for a long time, some of them doing better than others she agreed, she doing well.

Back in India, there’s an incarnation of her who does much better, but so be it. She’s not envious, she’s watched the new ones rise and fall again, her hand falling to her side. Shadow sees the others looking at her with mixed expressions - respect, humor, embarrassment in their eyes. She continues, they worshipped the railroads here only a blink of an eye ago, and now the iron gods are as forgotten as the emerald hunters.

Wed responds, make her point, she replying, make her point?, nostrils flaring, the corners of her mouth turned down, continuing she was obviously only a child, say we wait, do nothing, we don’t know they mean us harm. Wed responds, and will she counsel waiting when they come in the night and kill her or take her away? She has a bemused and disdainful look, all in the lips, eyebrows, and set of the nose, she replying if they tried, they’d find her hard to catch, and harder still to kill. A squat young man sitting on a bench behind her harrumphed for attention and says with a booming voice, All-father, his people are comfortable, we make the best of what we have, if this war of his goes against them, we could lose everything.

Wed responds, we already have, he’s offering the chance to take something back. The fire blazed high as he spoke, illuminating his audience. Shadow thinks, he doesn’t really believe any of this, maybe he’s still 15 and his mom’s still alive, and he hasn’t met Laura yet, everything which has happened so far some kind of esp. vivid dream, but he couldn’t believe this either. All we have to believe with is our senses, the tools we use to perceive the world, their sight, touch, and memory.

If they lie to us, then nothing can be trusted, and even if we don’t believe, then still we can’t travel any other way than the road their senses show us and we must walk this road to the end. Then the fire burned out and there was darkness in Valaskjalf, Odin’s Hall. Shadow whispers, now what, Mr Nancy muttering, now we return to the Carousel room and old One-Eye buys them all dinner, greases some palms, kiss some babies, and no one says the G-word anymore. Shadow asks, G-word?, the answer Gods, what was he doin’ the day they handed out brains, boy, anyways?

Shadow responds, someone was telling a story about stealing tiger’s balls and he had to stop and find out how it ended, Nancy chuckling. Shadow continues, nothing’s resolved, nobody agreed to anything, Nancy stating, Wed’s working on them slowly, he’ll land them one at a time, he’ll see, they’ll come around in the end. Shadow could feel a wind coming up from somewhere, stirring his hair, touching his face, pulling at him. They were standing in the room of the biggest Carousel in the world listening to the Emperor Waltz.

There was a group of people, looking like tourists, talking with Wed at the other side of the room, by the wall covered with all the wooden carousel horses as many people as there’d been shadowy figures in Wed’s Hall, he booming, through here, leading them through the only exit, looking like the gaping mouth of a huge monster, sharp teeth ready to shred them to slivers. Wed moved like a politician, cajoling, encouraging, smiling, gently disagreeing, pacifying. Shadow asks, did that happen, Nancy returning, did what happen, shit-for-brains? Shadow stating, the hall the fire, Tiger balls, riding the Carousel.

Nancy states, heck, nobody’s allowed to ride the carousel, didn’t he see the signs?, now hush. The monster’s mouth led to the Organ Room, which confused Shadow, since he felt they’d already come through this way, no less strange the 2nd time. Wed leads them upstairs past life-sized models of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse hanging fom the ceiling, they following the signs to an early exit. Shadow and Nancy are at the back following, then they were out of the House on the Rock, walking past the gift store and heading back into the parking lot.

Mr. Nancy says, it’s a pity they had to leave before the end, he was sort of hoping to see the biggest artificial orchestra in the whole world. Czerno states, he saw it, it’s no so much. The restaurant was a big barn-like structure, 10 minutes away, Wed told each guest tonight’s dinner was on him, and had organized rides to the restaurant for any of them who didn’t have their own transport. Shadow wondered how they’d gotten to the House on the Rock without their own transport, and how they’d get away again, but said nothing, it seeming the smartest action.

Shadow had a carful of Wed’s guests to ferry to the restaurant, the woman in the red sari sitting in front with him, 2 men int he backseat, a peculiar-looking young man whose name Shadow hadn’t properly heard, but might be Elvis, and another man in a dark suit Shadow couldn’t remember. He’d stood beside the man as he got in the car, opened and closed the door for him and was unable to remember anything about him. He turned around in the driver’s seat to look at him carefully so he’d recognize him if he saw him again, and when he turned back to start the car, the man slipped his mind. An impression of wealth all which was left behind, nothing else.

Shadow thinks he’s tired, and glances at the woman beside him, noting her tiny silver necklace of skulls around her neck, a charm bracelet of heads, and hands which jangled, like tiny bells when she moved, mention of the dark blue jewel on her forehead again. She smelled of spices, cardamom, nutmeg, and flowers, she having salt and pepper hair, and smiled when she saw him look at her. She says he can call her Mama-ji, Shadow introducing himself, she asking what he thought of his employer’s plans, he responding, he doesn’t ask and Wed don’t tell. The response is, if he asked her, he wants a last stand, wanting them to go out in a blaze of glory, and they’re old enough or stupid enough, which maybe some of them will say yes.

Shadow says it wasn’t his job to ask questions, the car filling with tinkling laughter. The man in the back he kept forgetting says something, Shadow replying and a moment later forgetting what was said. the peculiar man says nothing, but starts humming to himself, a deep melodic, bass humming which vibrated and rattled as it buzzed the interior of the car. Shadow comments to the peculiar-looking man, who was average height, but an odd shape, barrel-chested, legs like tree-trunks, hands like ham-hocks, wore a black parka with a hood, several sweaters, thick dungarees and white tennis shoes looking like shoe boxes, his fingers resembling sausages with squared-off fingertips, and he had some hum, the man apologizing embarrassed, but Shadow replying not to stop, he liked it.

So the man continues after a beat, and adds, Down, down, down, a few times as they pull into the restaurant, Shadow dropping them off near the door and parking in the back of the lot, wanting to walk to clear his head. Inside the restaurant, Shadow imagined Wed already seated with all his guests around a big table, working the room, then wondering if he’d actually driven Kali and what he was driving in the back. Someone asks in a half recognizable voice if he had a match, and as Shadow turns to apologize he didn’t a gun barrel hits him over his eye, someone pushing something soft in his mouth to stop him crying out and taped it, nothing but a muffled noise coming out. The half familiar voice says, the quarry’s inside, asks if everyone’s in position over a radio, then move in and round them up.

Someone asks, what about the big guy, the answer to package him up and take him out, they putting a bag over his head and binding his wrists and ankles with tape, putting him in the back of a truck and driving away. Shadow is in a tiny room without windows, locked in with a plastic chair and folding table, and bucket with cover on it, serving as a toilet, a 6 foot strip of yellow foam on the floor and think blanket, with a crusted brown stain, blood, shit, or food, a naked bulb behind a metal grill, no light switch, it always on, no door handle on his side, and he was hungry. The hit over his eye was slowly bleeding and his head ached, the floor uncarpeted and the room metallic, according to his watch, 5 hours having passed. His wallet was gone, but they left him his coins, he sat on the chair at the card table, covered in cigarette burns.

Shadow practices appearing to push coins through the table, then taking 2 quarters and made up a Pointless Coin Trick. Coin manipulation took all of Shadow’s head to do it, not able if he were stressed or upset, so the action of practicing the illusion, even one without a use, calmed his mind of turmoil and fear. He starts another illusion, a one-handed half dollar-to-penny transformation with his 2 quarters. He repeated this over and over again, wondering if they were going to kill him, his hand trembling and fumbling the trick so deciding to stop and takes out the Liberty-head dollar, holding it and waiting.

At 3 a.m. according to his watch, the spooks return to interrogate him, 2 men in dark suits, dark hair, and shiny black shoes, 1 square-jawed, wide-shouldered, great hair, looked like he played football in high school, badly bitten fingernails, and the other had a receding hairline, silver-rimmed round glasses, and manicured nails. They looked nothing alike, but Shadow suspected on some level, possibly cellular, the 2 were identical. They stood on either side of the card table looking down at him. One asks, how long he’d been working for Cargo, calling him sir, Shadow responding he didn’t know what this was.

The response being, he called himself, Wed, Grimm, the Olfather, Old guy, he’d been seen with him, sir. Shadow replies, 3 days, they responding, don’t lie to them, Shadow replying, ok, he wouldn’t, but it’s still 3 days. The clean-jawed spook twists Shadow’s ear and squeezed, the pain intense. He saying mildly, they told him not to lie to them, then letting go.

Each man had a gun-bulge under their jacket, Shadow doesn’t retaliate and acts like he had in prison, not telling them anything they didn’t know already and don’t ask questions. The spook with glasses states these were dangerous people he was palling around with and would be doing his country a service by turning state’s evidence, smiling sympathetically, the smile saying, he’s the good cop. Shadow sounds like he’s going to vomit in pain and as soon as he could speak he replies, he’d like to make them happy. The response, all they asked is his cooperation, Shadow then going against one of his rules and says, could he ask, gasping, knowing it was too late, since he’d spoken the words, who he’d be cooperating with?

The clean-jawed spook asks, he wanted him to tell their names, he had to be out of his mind, the spook with glasses responding, no, he’s got a point, it may make it easier for him to relate to them. He looks at Shadow and smiles like a man advertising toothpaste. He introduces himself, Hi, he’s Mister Stone and his colleague is Mr. Wood, Shadow responding, he actually meant what agency they’re with, CIA?FBI? Stone responds, it wasn’t this easy anymore, things weren’t this simple.

Wood responds, the private sector, the public sector, there’s a lot of interplay these days. Stone replies, but he could assure him, with another smile, they were the good guys, was he hungry, sir? He reaches in his jacket pocket and pulls out a Snickers bar, here, a gift. Shadow responds, water, please. Stone walks to the door and knocks, saying something to the guard on the other side, who nods and returns a minute later with a polystyrene cup filled with cold water.

Wood states with a shake of the head, CIA, those bozos, hey Stone, he’d heard a new CIA joke. Ok, how can they be sure the CIA wasn’t involved in the Kennedy assassination, Stone responds, he didn’t know, how could they be sure, Wood replying, he’s dead isn’t he? The 2 laugh, Stone asking if Shadow felt better now, sir, he responding, he guessed. So he questions, why doesn’t he tell them what happened this evening, sir.

Shadow responds, we did some tourist stuff, went to the House on the Rock, went out for food, they knew the rest. Stone sighs heavily, and Wood shakes his head, like he was disappointed, and kicked Shadow in the kneecap, the pain excruciating, Wood pushing his fist slowly into Shadow’s back right above the kidney and twisting his fist, the pain worse than the pain in his knee. Shadow considers whether he should take them, but reconsiders still being locked inside, despite having their guns. Woods kept his hands from Shadow’s face, no marks, nothing permanent, only fists and feet on his torso and knees, it hurt, Shadow clutching the Liberty dollar tight in the palm of his hand and waited for it to be over, and after far too long, the beating finished.

Stone states they’d see him in a couple hours, Woody really hated to have to do that, they’re reasonable men, like they said, they’re the good guys, Shadow’s on the wrong side. Meantime, why doesn’t he try to get some sleep, Wood stating he better start taking them seriously. Stone replies, Woody’s got a point there, sir, think about it. The door slams closed behind them, Shadow at first wondering if they’d turn the light off, but they didn’t.

Shadow crawls across the floor to the yellow foam-rubber pad, climbs on, and puts the think blanket over himself, closed his eyes, and held onto nothing holding onto dreams. Time passes, he was 15 again, and his mother was dying, and trying to tell him something very important, and he couldn’t understand her. He moves in his sleep and bolt of pain moves him from half-sleep to half-waking, and he winces. Shadow shivers under the thin blanket, right arm covering his eyes to block the light.

He wondered if Wed and the others were still free or even still alive, he hoping they were. The silver dollar was still cold in his hand, feeling it the way he had during the beating. He wondered idly why it didn’t warm to his temperature, half-asleep now and half-delirious, the coin, and the idea of Liberty, and the moon, and Polunochnaya somehow become intertwined in a woven beam of silver light, which shone from the depths of the heavens, and he rode the silver beam up and away from the heartache and fear, away from pain, and blessedly back into dreams. From far away he could hear some type of noise, but he was already back in sleep, a half-thought he hoping it wasn’t people coming to wake him hit him, or shout at him, then he noticed with pleasure, he was truly asleep and no longer cold.

Someone somewhere was shouting for help, in his dream or outside it, Shadow rolls on the rubber foam, finding new places which hurt as he rolled, hoping he hadn’t woken all the way, and relieved sleep returned again. Someone shook his shoulder, he wanting to ask them not to wake him, let him sleep and leave him be, but this coming out as a grunt. Laura asks, Puppy? You have to wake up, please wake up, hon. A moment of gentle relieve, he having had such strange dreams of prisons and con-men, down-at-heel gods, and now Laura was waking him to tell him it’s time for work, and perhaps there’d be time enough before work to steal some coffee and a kiss, or more, he putting out a hand to touch her.

Her flesh was cold as ice and sticky, Shadow’s eyes opening, asking where’d all the blood come from? Her answer, other people, it wasn’t hers, she’s filled with formaldehyde, mixed glycerin and lanolin. He asks which other people? She states, the guards, it’s ok, she killed them. He better move, she didn’t think she gave anyone a chance to raise the alarm.

Take a coat from out there or he’ll freeze his butt off. He asks, she killed them? and she shrugs, half-smiling awkwardly. Her hands looked like she’d been finger painting, executed solely in crimson’s, splashes and spatters on her face and clothes (the same blue suit she’d been buried in), making Shadow think of Jackson Pollack, which made less issues than thinking about the reality. Shadow states, it’s still a big deal to him, she asking if he wants to stay there until the morning crew comes, he can if he likes, she thought he’d want to get out of there.

Shadow responds dumbly, they’ll think he did it, she replying, maybe, put on a coat hon, he’ll freeze. He walks into the corridor, at the end of it a guardroom, inside were 4 dead men, 3 guards, and the man calling himself Stone. His friend wasn’t there, from the blood skid-marks on the floor, 2 had been dragged in, and left on the floor. Shadow’s coat was hanging on the coat rack his wallet still in the inside pocket, seemingly untouched.

Laura pulled open a couple cardboard boxes filled with candy bars. The guards had on dark camo uniforms, but no official tags. Laura squeezes his hand in her cold one, she wearing the gold coin on her neck on a gold chain. Shadow comments, it looks nice, she replying, thanks, and smiles prettily.

He asks, what about the others, Wed and the rest of them, where were they. She passes him a handful of the candy bars to put in his pockets. She replies, there wasn’t anybody else there, a lot of empty cells, and one with him. One of the men had gone into another cell to jack off with a magazine and got such a shock.

Shadow asks, she killed him while he was jerking himself off, she replying, she guesses, uncomfortably, she was worried they were hurting him. Someone had to watch out for him and she told him she would, didn’t she? Here, take these, handing him hand and feet warmers, this pads, when the seals are broken they heat up to a little above body temperature and stay this way for hours, Shadow pocketing them. He repeats, look out for him yes, she had.

She reaches out with a finger, stroking him above his eyebrow, stating he’s hurt, he responding, he’s ok. He opens the metal door in the wall, it swinging open slowly, a 4 foot drop to the ground, he swinging himself down to what felt like gravel. He picks Laura up by the waist and swing her down, like he used to, easily, without a 2nd thought. The moon comes out from behind a thick cloud, low on the horizon and ready to set, but the light on the snow enough to see by.

They emerged from what turned out to be a black-painted metal car of a long freight train, parked or abandoned in a woodland siding. The cars went on as far as the eyes could see, into the trees and onward, he should’ve known he was on a train. Shadow asks, how the hell did she find him there, she amusedly shaking her head slowly, saying he shone like a beacon in a dark world, it wasn’t too hard, now, he needed to go as far and as fast as he can, and not to use his credit card, and he should be fine. He asks where should he go, she pushed a hand through her matted hair, flicking it back out of her eyes, the road’s this way, do whatever he could, steal a car if he had to, go south.

Shadow then asks, did she know what was going on, did she know who these people were, who she’d killed? She replying, yeah, she thinks she knows. He states, he owes her, he’d still be in there if it hadn’t been for her, he didn’t think they had anything good planned for him. She agrees, no, she didn’t think they did.

They walk away from the empty train cars, his fingers close around the Liberty dollar in his pocket and he’s reminded of Polunochnaya and her questions, did he ask her what she wanted, it’s the wisest thing to ask the dead, sometimes they’ll tell him. He asks, Laura what do you want, she responds, does he really want to know? He replies, yes. Please. Laura looks up at him with dead blue eyes, and says, she wants to be alive again, not in this half-life, she wanted to truly be alive.

She wants to feel her heart pumping in her chest again, feel blood moving through her - hot, salty, real. It’s weird, one doesn’t think it’s felt the blood, but believe her, when it stops flowing, he’ll know. She rubs her eyes, smudging her face with red from the mess on her hands, she continues, look, she didn’t know why this happened to her, but it’s hard, did he know why dead people only go out at night, puppy? It’s easier to pass for real in the dark and she didn’t want to have to pass, she wanted to be alive.

He states, he doesn’t understand what she wanted him to do, she replying, make it happen hon, he’ll figure it out, she knew he would. He replies, ok, he’ll try, and if he does figure it out, how would he find her? But she’d already left, and nothing left in the woodland, but a gently gray in the sky to show him where east was and on the bitter Dec. wind a lonely wail, which may have been the cry of the last night bird or the call of the first bird of dawn. Shadow set his face to the south and started walking.

He’d been walking what he’d hoped was more or less south for several hours heading along a narrow unmarked road through woods somewhere in, what he guessed, southern Wisconsin. Several jeeps had come down the road toward him at one point, headlights blazing, he ducking well back into the trees until they passed, the early morning mist hanging at waist level, the cars black. When after half hour he hears the noise of distant helicopters coming from the west, he heads out away from the timber trail and into the woods. There were 2 helicopters, he laying crouched in a hollow beneath a fallen tree and listened to them pass over.

As they moved away, he looked out and up, for a hasty glance at the winter gray sky. He was satisfied to see the copters were painted a matte black, he waited beneath the tree until the noise of the copters were completely gone. Under the trees the snow was barely a dusting, grateful for the chemical hand and feet warmers, keeping his extremities from freezing. Beyond this, he was numb: heart, mind, and soul-numb, and the numbness went a long way down and way book.

Shadow asks himself, so what did he want, he unable to answer, so he kept walking, a step at a time, on and on through the woods. Trees looked familiar and landscape was perfectly deja-vued, he questioning if he was walking in circles, and starting to have paranoid thoughts of using up the warmers and candy bars until they were gone and sitting down, never getting up again. He reaches a large stream locals would call a creek, pronounced crick, deciding to follow it. Streams led to rivers which led to the MS, and if he kept walking or stole a boat or built a raft, eventually he’d get to New Orleans, where it was warmer, an idea both comforting and unlikely.

There were no more copters, which he had a feeling the one’s he’d seen were to be the cleaning up of the mess at the freight train siding, and not hunting him, otherwise they’d have returned with tracker dogs and sirens, with other signs of pursuit, instead there being nothing. Shadow wanted to understand what was happening and find out how it would all end, and most of all, he giving a half-rueful grin, he wanting everything to be normal. He wanted never to have gone to prison for Laura to still be alive, and for none of this to ever have happened. In Wed’s voice in his thoughts, he says, he’s afraid this isn’t exactly an option, m’boy; so keep walking.

He then hears a woodpecker in the distance, he then feeling eyes on him, some red cardinals looking at him from a skeletal elder bush before returning to pecking at clusters of black elderberries. He walks away from them as he hears their bird chatter fade. A dead fawn lay in a glade in the shadow of a hill, a black bird the size of a small dog, picking at its side. The black bird cocks its head to one side then says in a voice like stones being struck, you shadow man.

Shadow confirms, the bird hopping onto the fawn’s rump, raised its head and ruffles its crown and neck feathers, its eyes black beads. There’s something intimidating about a bird this size, this close. The raven tokked, says he will see him in Kay-ro, Shadow wondering which of Odin’s ravens tis was, he asking, Kay-ro? The raven responding, in Egypt. Shadow asks how he’d get to Egypt, the raven replying, follow MS, go south. Find Jackal.

Shadow levels with the bird, look he doesn’t want to seem, he pauses, regrouping, cold and standing in a wood talking to a big black bird, who was currently brunching on Bambi then continues, ok, what he’s trying to say is, he didn’t want mysteries. The bird agrees, mysteries, Shadow stating, what he wanted was explanations. Jackal in Kay-ro not helping him. The raven says, Jackal. Friend. Tok. Kay-ro.

Shadow responds, so he said, he liking a little more info than this. The bird half turns and pulls another bloody strip of raw venison from the fawn’s ribs before flying into the trees, with the strip dangling like a worm. Shadow calls after it, hey, could he at least get him back to a real road? The raven flew up and away, Shadow looks at the baby deer and thinks if he were a real woodsman he’d slice off a steak and grill it over a wood fire, but instead walks and sits on a fallen tree and eats a Snicker’s bar, knowing he wasn’t a woodsman.

The raven caws at the edge of the clearing, Shadow asks, he wanted him to follow, or has Timmy fallen down another well, the bird cawing again, impatiently. Shadow starts walking toward it, waiting til he was close then flapped to another tree, heading somewhat to the left of the way Shadow had originally been going. Shadow says, hey, Huginn or Muninn, or whoever he is, the bird turning, head tipped, suspiciously, on one side, and staring at him with bright eyes. Shadow says, say nevermore, the raven replying, fuck you, saying nothing else as they went through the woodland together, the raven in the lead and flying from tree to tree.

Shadow stomps heavily through the undergrowth to catch up. The sky was gray at almost midday, in half hour they reach a blacktop road on the edge of a town, and the raven flies back into the wood. Shadow observes a Culver’s Frozen Custard ButterBurgers sign, and next to it, a gas station. He goes into the Culver’s which has no customers, a keen young man with a shaved head behind the register.

Shadow orders 2 ButterBurgers and fries, then goes to the restroom to clean up, looking a mess. He does an inventory of the contents of his pockets, having a few coins along with the silver Liberty dollar, a disposable toothbrush and toothpaste, 3 Snickers, 5 chemical heater pads, a wallet with driver license and credit card, and in his coat’s inside pocket, a grand in 50s and 20s, his take from the bank job. He washes his face and hands slicked his hair, then goes back in the restaurant and ate his burgers and fries, drinking coffee. He returns to the counter where the ‘keen young man‘ asks if he wants frozen custard, Shadow declining and asks if there was somewhere nearby he could rent a car, his died a ways back on the road.

The young man scratches his head stubble and states, not around there, mr., if his car died he should call triple A (AAA) or talk with the gas station next door about a tow. Shadow says, a fine idea and thanks, walking across melting snow from the Culver’s parking lot to the gas station, buying candy bars and beef jerky and more hand and foot warmers. He asks the woman at the register the same question, if there was somewhere he could rent a car. She was immensely plump and bespectacled, and delighted to have someone to chat with.

She says, let her think, they’re sort of out of the way here, they doing this type of thing in Madison, where’s he heading? Kay’ro, he replies, wherever this is. She says, she knew where it was, hand her a map from the rack over there, he passing her a plastic-coated map of IL, she unfolding it, then pointing in triumph to the bottommost corner of the state, there it is, she says. He questions, Cairo, she responding, this is how they pronounce the one in Egypt, the one in Little Egypt, they call Kayro, they having a Thebes and all sorts.

Her sister-in-law comes from Thebes, she asked her about the one in Egypt and looked at her like she had a screw loose, she chuckling like a drain. He asks any pyramids, she responding, not they ever told her, they calling it Little Egypt, due to back mebbe 100, 150 years back, there was a famine all over, crops failed, but not down there, so everyone went there to buy food, like in the Bible. The city was 500 miles away, almost directly south, Shadow asking, if she was him, and needed to get there, how would she go, the immediate answer, drive. Shadow says his car died a few miles down the road, and it was a pieceofshit, if she’d excuse his language, she agreeing saying, pee-oh-ess is what her brother-in-law calls the cars he buys and sells in a small way.

Maybe he’d like to sell his old car, Shadow lying and saying it was his boss’ and had to call him to pick it up, then asks if her bro-in-law was around there, she responding, 10 minutes south of there, over the river. Shadow asks if he had a POS he’d sell for a few hundred bucks, she on the same page with Shadow when he asks, she calling and telling him she had a man wants to buy a car. The POS he chose was an ‘83 Chevy Nova, which he bought with a full tank for $450 and had a quarter of a million miles on it, this one seeming the most likely to get him the 500 miles to Kayro. Shadow drove off of the interstate, he passes a sign saying he’d left Wisconsin and was in IL, passing strip-mining works, huge blue arc lights burning in the dim midwinter daylight.

He stopped at a place called Mom’s for lunch, catching them before they closed for the afternoon, the food ok. He drove on head nodding, feeling more drained and exhausted every passing minute, then running a stoplight and nearly being sideswiped by a woman in a Dodge. As soon as he reached open country, he pulled off on to an empty tractor path on the side of the road and parked by a snow-spotted stubbly field with a slow procession of black wild turkeys walking. He turns off the engine, gets in the backseat, and falls asleep.

Darkness and a sensation of falling feeling like Alice tumbling down a hole. He fell for a hundred years into darkness, faces passing, swimming out of the black, each face ripped up and away before he could touch it, then abruptly without transition he isn’t falling. Now he’s in a cave, and no longer alone, Shadow staring into familiar eyes, huge liquid black eyes, they blinking. Under the earth, yes, he remembering this place, the stink of wet cow, firelight flickering on wet cave walls, illuminating the buffalo head and man’s body, skin the color of brick clay.

Shadow asks, can’t they leave him be, he just wanted to sleep. The buffalo man nods slowly, his lips not moving, but a voice in Shadow’s head asks, where is he going, Shadow? He replying, Cairo and being asked why his response, where else did he have to go to, it’s where Wed wanted him to go, he drank his mead. In Shadow’s dream, with the power of dreamlogic behind it, the obligation seemed unarguable.

The buffalo-headed man reached a hand into the fire, stirring the embers and broken branches into a blaze. He says, the storm is coming, now ask on his hands, he wiping it onto his hairless chest, leaving soot-black streaks. So they keep telling him, Shadow wanting to ask a question. A pause as a fly settles on the buffalo man’s fuzzy forehead and he flicking it away, then stating, ask.

Shadow questions is this true, are these people truly gods, it’s all so… unlikely, which wasn’t the word he wanted, but the best he could come up with. The buffalo man asks, what are gods, Shadow answering, he didn’t know. There was a dull, relentless tapping, Shadow waited for him to continue, he was cold, the fire no longer burning. He heard the tapping continue, Shadow then wakes groggily, opening his eyes, freezing, the sky a deep illumined purple dividing dusk from night.

He hears, tap, tap, and someone say, hey, mister, Shadow turns and sees a dark figure, he rolls down the window, makes waking up noises and says, hi. The person asks, is he all right, is he sick, had he been drinking, the voice high. Shadow replies he’s fine, then gets out of the car stretching and rubbing his hands together, the person saying he’s pretty big. Shadow states, this is what they told him, then asks, who they are, the reply, Sam, Shadow asking, Boy or girl Sam, she replying Girl-Sam, used to be Sammi with an i and changing it after everyone started doing smiley’s over the i like she had.

Shadow then says, ok, girl-Sam, go over there and look out at the road, she asking, why, is he a crazed killer or something, and he replying no, he needed to take a leak and would like the smallest amount of privacy. She replies, Oh. Right. Ok. Got it. No problem. She’s so with him oversharing about understanding and having a shy bladder, Shadow stating, now please. She obliges, walking to the far side of the car, and he walking closer to the field, taking a long piss against a fencepost, he then walking back and asking, is she still there, she replying yes, commenting he must have a badder like Lake Erie, empires rising and falling with the time it took for him to pee, she having heard the whole time.

Shadow replies, thank you, does she want something, she repeating, she wanted to see if he was ok, if he was dead or something, would’ve called the cops, but the windows were fogged so, he was probably alive. Shadow asks if she lived around there, she saying nope, she’s hitching from Madison. He replies this wasn’t safe, she replying, she’d done it 5 times a year for 3 years now and she’s still alive, asking where he’s headed, he stating he’s going as far as Cairo, she saying thank you, she’s going to El Paso and staying with her aunt for the holidays.

Shadow states he can’t take her all the way, she clarifying it’s the El Paso in IL, not TX, a few hours south, she asking if he knew where he was, and he replying no, no idea, somewhere on Hwy 52? She states, the next town is Peru, the one in IL, not in Peru, she then says, let her smell him, bend down. Shadow bends down, and the girl sniffs his face, she declaring he didn’t smell of booze, so he can drive, they can go. He returns with what made her think he’s giving her a ride, she responding, since she’s a damsel in distress, and he’s a knight in whatever, a really dirty car, and did he know someone wrote Wash Me! on his rear windshield.

Shadow gets into the car and opens the passenger door, the light which is supposed to turn on in cars with a door open, doesn’t. He responds, no, he didn’t she climbing in and saying, it was her, she wrote it, while there was still light to see. Shadow starts the car, turns the headlights on, and heads back onto the road, Sam helpfully saying, Left, Shadow obliging and driving. After several minutes the heater started working and blessed warmth filled the car.

Sam states, he hadn’t said anything yet, say something. Shadow asks, is she human, an honest-to-goodness, born-of-man-and-woman, living breathing human being? Her answer is, sure, he replying, ok, just checking, so what would she like him to say. She states, something to reassure her, at this point, suddenly having the, oh shit, I’m in the wrong car with a crazy man, feeling.

He replies, yeah, he’s had this one, what would she find reassuring. She states, tell her he’s not an escaped con or mass murderer or something, he thinks for a moment, then says, he’s really not, she stating, he had to think about it though, didn’t he, Shadow stating he’d done his time, never killed anybody, she answering, oh. They enter a small town, lit by streetlights and blinking Christmas decorations, Shadow glancing right, the girl having a tangle of short dark hair, and a face both attractive and faintly mannish, her features might have been chiseled from rock, and she was looking at him. She asks, what was he in prison for, he stating, he hurt a couple people real bad.

He got angry, she asking, did they deserve it, Shadow thinking for a moment, and replying, he’d thought so at the time. She asks, would he do it again, his answer, hell no, he’d lost 3 years of his life in there. Sam goes, mm, did he have Indian blood in him, he not knowing, she stating, he looked like it, was all. Shadow answers, sorry to disappoint her, she saying, s’ok, was he hungry.

He replies, he could eat, she offering, there’s a good place past the next set of lights. Good food, cheap, too. Shadow pulls in the parking lot, they get out, and didn’t bother locking the car, pocketing the keys. He pulled some coins out to buy a newspaper, he asking her if she can afford to eat there, she replying, yeah, raising her chin, she can pay for herself.

Shadow nods, then says, tell her what, he’ll toss her for it, heads, she pays for his, tails, he’ll pay for hers. She states suspiciously, let her see the coin first, she had an uncle who had a double-headed quarter. She inspects it, satisfied herself there was nothing strange about the quarter, Shadow placing the coin head-up on his thumb, and cheated the toss, so it wobbled and looked like it was spinning, then he catches it, and flipped it over onto the back of his hand, uncovering it in front of her. Tails, she says happily, dinner’s on him, he agrees, yup, can’t win them all.

Shadow orders the meatloaf and Sam orders the lasagna, he flipping through the paper to see if there was anything in it about dead men in a freight train, which there wasn’t. The only story of interest on the cover, crows in record numbers infesting the town. Local farmers wanted to hang dead crows around the town on public buildings to scare the others away, but bird experts said it wouldn’t work, the living crows would eat the dead, the locals not placatable, a spokesman saying, when they see the corpses of their friends, they’ll know they don’t want them there. The food was good, and it came mounded on steaming plates, ore than one person could eat.

Sam asks, so what’s in Cairo, with her mouth full. He answers, no idea, he got a message from his boss saying he needed him down there. She asks what he did, he says he’s an errand boy. She smiles, saying, well, he isn’t Mafia, not looking how he did and driving the POS, and why did his car smell like bananas, anyways, Shadow shrugging and continuing to eat.

Sam narrows her eyes and says, maybe he’s a banana smuggler, he hadn’t asked what she did yet. He states, he figured she’s at school, she replying UW Madison, he continuing, where she undoubtedly is studying art history, women’s studies, and probably casting her own bronzes, and working at a coffee house to help cover the rent. Sam puts her fork down, nostrils flaring, eyes wide, asking how the fuck did he do that, he responding, what? now she says, no, actually she’s studying Romance languages and ornithology. She responds, so he’s saying it was a lucky guess or something, he replying, what was?

She stares at him and states, he’s one peculiar guy, mister… she didn’t know his name. He says, they call him Shadow, she twisting her mouth wryly, like she tasted something she didn’t like, and stopped talking, putting her head down and finishing her lasagna. Shadow asks, does she know why it’s called Egypt, when Sam’s finished eating, she asks, down Cairo way? Yeah, it’s in the delta of the Ohio and MS, like Cairo in Egypt in the Nile delta.

He responds, this made sense, she sits back in her chair and orders coffee and a chocolate cream pie, running a hand through her black hair and asks Shadow if he’s married, he then hesitating, she saying, gee, she just asked another tricky question, didn’t she? He responds, they buried her on Thursday, picking his words with care, and was killed in a car crash. She responds, Oh. God. Jesus. She sorry and having an awkward pause and offering, her half sister lost her nephew end of last year, it being rough. Shadow agrees, yeah, it was, what did he die of?

She stating as she sipped coffee, they didn’t know, they don’t even really know if he’s dead, he just vanished, but he’s only 13, it was the middle of last winter, and her sister was pretty broken up about it. Shadow asks, were there any clues, or did they suspect foul play, adjusting his question for feeling like a TV cop. Sam responds, they suspected her non-custodial asshole brother-in-law , his father. Who was asshole enough to steal him away, probably had, but this was in a little town in the Northwoods, lovely, sweet, pretty little town where no one ever locked their doors.

She sighs, and shakes her head, holding the coffee cup in both hands, then looking up at him and changing the subject, asking how he knew she cast bronzes. He responds, lucky guess, it was only something to say. She asks if he’s sure he isn’t part Indian, he saying again, he didn’t know, it’s possible, he never met his father, he guessed his ma would’ve told him if he was Native American though, maybe. Again, she pulls a mouth-twist, Sam giving up halfway through her pie, the slice half the size of her head, she pushing the plate across the table to Shadow asking, did he want?

He smiling and replying, sure, finishing it off. The waitress hands them the check and Shadow paid. Sam thanks him, it getting colder now the car coughing a couple times before starting. Shadow drove back onto the road and kept going south as he asks if she’d ever read a guy named Herodotus, she replying, Jesus, what?

Shadow clarifies if she’d ever read Herodotus’ Histories, she responding dreamily of she not getting it, she didn’t get how he talked or the words he used or anything. One moment he’s a big dumb guy, the next he’s reading her friggin’ mind, and the next they’re talking about Herodotus, so no, she hasn’t read him, she’s heard of him, maybe on NPR. Wasn’t he the one they call the father of lies? Shadow thought this was the Devil, she agreeing, yeah, him too, but they were saying Herodotus said there were giant ants and gryphons guarding gold mines, and how he made this stuff up.

Shadow responds, he didn’t think so, he wrote what he’d been told, it’s like, he’s writing these histories, and they’re mostly pretty good histories. Loads of weird details, like did she know, in Egypt, if a particularly beautiful girl, or the wife of a lord or whatever died, they couldn’t send her to the embalmer for 3 days? They’d let her body spoil in the heat first. She asks why, then says oh, hold on ok, she thinks she knows why, oh, that’s disgusting.

Shadow continues, and there’s battles there, all sorts of normal things, and then there are the gods, some guy running back to report on the outcome of a battle and he’s running and running, and sees Pan in a glade, and Pan says, tell them to build him a temple here. He says, ok and runs the rest of the way back and reports the battle news and then says, oh, by the way, Pan wants them to build him a temple. It’s really matter of fact, so there are stories with gods in them, Sam responding, what was he trying to say, these guys had hallucinations? Shadow replying, no, that’s not it.

She chews a hangnail and offers, she’d read some book about brains, her roommate had it, and she kept waving it around, it was like, how 5000 years ago, the lobes of the brain fused and before, people thought when the right lobe of the brain said anything, it was the voice of some god telling them what to do, it’s only brains. Shadow states, he liked his theory better, she asking what it was, and he responding, back then people used to run into the gods from time to time. She replies, oh; then silence, with only the rattling of the car, roar of the engine, growling of the muffler, which didn’t sound healthy. Then she asks, did he think they were still there, he asking, where she supplying, Greece. Egypt. The islands. Those places.

Did he think if he walked where those people walked he’d see the gods. He responds, maybe, but he doesn’t think people would know this was what they’d seen. She supplies, she bet it’s like space aliens, these days people see them, back then, they saw gods and maybe space aliens come from the right side of the brain. Shadow returns with, he didn’t think the gods ever gave rectal probes or mutilate cattle themselves, they’d get people to do it for them.

Sam chuckles and they drive in silence for a few minutes, and then she says, hey, this reminds her of her favorite god story, from Comparative Religion 101, did he want to hear it? Shadow replies, sure, she continues, ok, this one’s about Odin the Norse god, y’know? There was some Viking king on a Viking ship, this way back in the Viking time obviously, and they were becalmed, so he says he’ll sacrifice one of his men to Odin if Odin will send them a wind, and get them to land.

Ok. The wind comes up, and they get to land, and when they’re landed, they draw lots to figure out who gets sacrificed, and it’s the king himself. Well, he’s not happy about this, but they figure out they can hang him in effigy and not hurt him. They take a calf’s intestines and loop them loosely around the guy’s neck, and they tie the other end to a think branch, and they take a reed instead of a spear and poke him with it, and go, ok, he’s been hung - hanged? Whatever, he’s been sacrificed to Odin.

As soon as they say Odin’s name, the reed transforms into a spear and stabs the guy in the side, the calf intestines become a thick rope, and the branch becomes a bough of a tree, and the tree pulls up, and the ground drops away, and the king is left hanging there to die with a wound in his side and his face going black, end of story. White people have some fucked-up gods, Mr. Shadow. He agrees, yes, then asks, she’s not white? She responds, she’s Cherokee, he asks full blooded?, and she says, nope, only 4 pints, her mom white and her dad a real reservation Indian.

He came out this way, eventually marrying her mom, had her, then they split and he went back to OK. Shadow asks if he went back to the rez, and she responds no, he borrowed money and opened a Taco Bell knock-off called Taco Bill’s, he doing ok, doesn’t talk to her, calls her halfbreed. Shadow apologizes and she replies, he’s a jerk, she’s proud of her Indian blood, it helping pay her college tuition, hell one day it’ll probably help get her a job if she can’t sell her bronzes. Shadow responds, there’s always that, he stopping in El Paso, IL to let Sam out at a down-at-heel house on the edge of the town.

She asks if he wanted to come in, the front yard wire-framed with a model reindeer covered in twinkling lights, her aunt would give him coffee, he declining and needing to keep moving. She smiles at him, looked, for the first time, vulnerable, pats his arm and says, he’s fucked up, mister, but he’s cool. Shadow replies, he believed this is what they call the human condition and thanks her for the company. She responds, no problem, if he saw any gods on the road to Cairo, make sure and say hi to them for her, she getting out of the car and going to the door of the house.

She presses the bell and stands at the door without looking back, Shadow waiting until the door opened and she was safely inside before putting his foot down and heading back to the hwy. He passes Normal, Bloomington, and Lawndale and at 11 at night Shadow starts shaking. As he enters a new town, he decides he needs sleep, or simply not to drive anymore and pulls into a Night’s Inn, paid $35 cash advance for a ground floor room and goes into the bathroom, finding a sad cockroach laying on its back in the middle of the tiled floor. Shadow takes a towel and cleans the inside of the tub, running a bath, the bruises on his torso were dark and vivid.

He sits in the tub after undressing in the bedroom, color of the water changing as he watched, after he washed his socks, briefs and t-shirt in the basin, hanging them on the clothesline which pulled out from the wall above the bathtub. He left the cockroach where it lay out of respect for the dead. Shadow climbs into the bed, wondering about watching an adult movie, but the pay-per-view by phone needed a credit card, he not convinced it’d make him feel any better watching other people have sex he wasn’t having. He turns the TV on for company and presses the Sleep button on the remote 3x so it’d shut off in 45 minutes, thinking he’d be asleep by then, it a quarter to midnight.

The TV screen was motel-fuzzy and the colors swam across the screen, he flipping from late show to late show in the televisual wasteland, unable to focus. From multi-use gadget pitching to televangelist begging for funds. An episode of M*A*S*H is ending and Dick Van Dyke starts, Shadow not having seen an episode in years and finding the 1965 black and white world comforting. He puts down the TV remote and turns off the bedside lamp, watching the show as his eyes slowly close, but also aware something was odd.

He found the tone of the show strange, everyone concerned with Rob’s drinking, missing days at work, and when they went to his home, he’d locked himself in the bedroom and had to be persuaded to come out, and was staggering drunk, but still pretty funny, his friends leaving after getting some good gags in. Then when Rob’s wife went to remonstrate or reprimand, he hits her hard in the face, she sitting on the floor and starting to cry, not in the famous Mary Tyler Moore wail, but in small, helpless sobs, hugging herself and whispering, don’t hit her, please, she’ll do anything, only don’t hit her anymore. Shadow says, what the fuck is this?, the picture dissolving into phosphor-dot fuzz, and when it returned, The Dick Van Dyke show had inexplicably become I Love Lucy. She tries to persuade Ricky to let her replace their old icebox with a new fridge, when he left though, she walks to the couch and sits down, crossing her ankles, resting her hands in her lap, and stares patiently in black and white across the years.

She asks, Shadow? they need to talk. Shadow doesn’t reply as she opens her purse and takes out a cigarette, lighting it with an expensive lights, and puts it away. She then says, she’s talking to him, well? Shadow responds, this is crazy.

She replies, like the rest of his life is sane? give her a fucking break. He responds, whatever, Lucille Ball talking to him from the TV is weirder by several orders of magnitude than anything which has happened to him so far. She returns with, it wasn’t Lucille Ball, it’s Lucy Ricardo, and did he know she’s not even her, it’s only an easy way to look, given the context. She shifts uncomfortably on the sofa, Shadow asks who she is.

She replies, ok, good question, she’s the idiot box, she’s the TV the all-seeing eye and the world of the cathode ray, the boob tube, and the little shrine the family gathers to adore. He asks, she’s the television? Or someone in the TV? She responding, the TV’s the altar, she’s what people are sacrificing to, he asking what the sacrificed?

She replies, mostly their time, sometimes each other, then she gave a big, old I Love Lucy wink. Shadow asks, she’s a god? She smirks and takes a lady-like puff on her cigarette, her reply, he could say this. Shadow responds, Sam says hi, she responding in confusion, what? Who’s Sam? What was he talking about?

Shadow looks at his watch and sees it’s 25 past 12 and states, it didn’t matter, so, Lucy-on-the-TV, what did they need to talk about, too many people have needed to talk recently, and it ended with someone hitting him. The camera moves in for a close-up, Lucy looking concerned, her lips pursed and says, she hates people were hurting him, Shadow, she’d never do this, honey, no she wanted to offer him a job. He asks, doing what? Her response, working for her, she’s really sorry, she’d heard about the trouble he had with the Spookshow, and was impressed with how he dealt with it.

Efficient, no-nonsense, effective, who’d have thought he’d have it in him, they’re really pissed. Shadow asks, really? She replies, they underestimated him, sweetheart, not a mistake she’s going to make, she wants him in her camp. She stands and walks toward the camera.

Look at it like this, Shadow, we’re the coming thing. We’re the shopping malls, while his friends are sitting by the side of the hwy selling homegrown produce from a gardencart. No, not even fruit sellers buggy-whip vendors, whalebone-corset repairers, we’re now and tomorrow, his friends aren’t even yesterday anymore. The speech strangely familiar, Shadow asks, did she ever meet a fat kid in a limo?

She spread her hands and rolled her eyes comically, Lucy Ricardo washing her hands of a disaster, and asks, the technical boy? He’d met him? Look, he’s a good kid, one of them, he’s only not good with people he doesn’t know, when Shadow works for them, he’ll see how amazing he is. Shadow asks, and if he doesn’t want to work for her, I-Love-Lucy?

There was a knock on the door of Lucy’s apartment, and Ricky’s voice could be heard off-stage, asking Loo-cy what was keep-in’ her so long, they was due down at the club in the next scene, a flash of irritation touches Lucy’s cartoonish face. She responds, hell, look, whatever the old guys are paying him, she can pay double, treble, a hundred times, whatever they’re giving him, she can give him so much more. She smiled a perfect, roguish Lucy Ricardo smile, he names it, honey, what did he need? She starts undoing the buttons of her blouse, and says, hey,, he ever want to see Lucy’s tits?

The screen goes back, the sleep function kicking in and turning itself off. Shadow looks at his watch seeing it’s half past midnight and responds, not really. He rolls over and closes his eyes, it occurring to him the reason he liked Wed and Nancy and the rest of them better than their opposition was pretty straightforward, they may be dirty and cheap, and their food may taste like shit, but they at least didn’t speak in cliches, and he’d take a roadside attraction, no matter how cheap, how crooked, or how sad, over a shopping mall any day (malls pretty dead in the U.S. since this was written). Morning found Shadow back on the road, driving through a gently undulating brown landscape of winter grass and leafless trees.

The last of the snow had vanished, he filling up the tank at another small town and taking it through a car wash, and was surprised to learn the car was against all reason, a pretty much rust-free white color, he driving onward. At some point he found he was heading into East St. Louis, which he attempts to avoid and instead finding himself driving through what appeared to be a red-light district in an industrial park. 18 wheelers and huge rigs parked outside buildings, which looked like temporary warehouses claiming to be 24 hour nite clubs and one THE BEST PEAP SHOW IN TOWN. Shadow shakes his head and continues on.

Laura had loved to dance, clothed or naked and on several memorable evenings moving from one state to the other, and he’d loved to watch her. Lunch was a sandwich and a can of Coke in a town called Red Bud. He passes a valley filled with the wreckage of thousands of yellow bulldozers, tractors, and Caterpillars, he wondering if this was the bulldozers graveyard. As he drove through changing scenery, seeing homes with white pillars, which to someone, would name a mansion regardless of how shabby and thin it was, and then driving over a big muddy river and laughing at the sign naming it the Big Muddy River.

Then he’s driving alongside the MS, Shadow having never seen the Nile, but the blinding noon sun burning on the wide brown river making him think of the Nile from long ago, he then seeing a road sign pointing to Thebes. In the late noon the sun was lowering and gilded the world in elf-light, a thick warm custardy light making the world feel unearthly and more real, and it was at this time Shadow passes the sign saying he’s Now Entering Historical Cairo. He drove under a bridge and sees an imposing structure of the courthouse and more imposing customs house looking like enormous freshly baked cookies in the syrupy gold of the light at the end of day. He parks the car in a side street and walks to the embankment at the edge of the river he wasn’t certain was the MS or Ohio, a small brown nosed cat springing among the bins at the back of a building, the light even making the garbage magical.

Shadow realizes he isn’t alone, seeing a small girl, wearing old tennis shoes and a man’s gray woolen sweater as a dress, standing on the sidewalk 10 feet away from him, staring with somber gravity of a 6 year old, her hair black, straight and long, her skin as brown as the river. Shadow grins at her, she staring back defiantly, then a squeal and yowl from the waterfront, the brown cat shooting away from the bin as a dog pursued the cat under a car. Shadow then says, hey, has she seen invisible powder before? She hesitates before shaking her head, Shadow responds, ok, well watch this, Shadow pulling out a quarter, holding it up, he starting a sleight of hand, then reaches into his pocket, dropping the quarter in a mimics sprinkling and shows his empty hand, the little girl only staring.

Shadow shrugs and loads another quarter and folded $5 bill to give to her, since it looked like she could use it, then says, hey, they’ve got an audience, the little black dog and brown cat flanking the girl and looking up at him intently. A crane-like man with gold-rimmed glasses was coming down the sidewalk toward them, looking from side to side like he was looking for something, Shadow wondering if he was the dog’s owner. Shadow asks the dog, what did he think, to put the girl at ease, was this cool? The black dog licks its snout then in a deep, dry voice says, he’d seen Harry Houdini once, and believe him, man, he ain’t no Houdini.

The little girl looked at the animals, then Shadow, and then running off, feet pounding the sidewalk as if all the powers of hell were after her, the 2 animals watching her go. The crane-like man reaches the dog and leans down to scratch its high, pointed ears, he saying, come on, to the dog, it was only a coin trick, not like he was doing an underwater escape. The dog replies, not yet, but he will, the golden light was done and the gray of twilight started. Shadow drops the coin and the folded bill back in his pocket and says, ok, which of them is Jackal?

The dog responds, use his eyes, this way, it ambling along the sidewalk beside the man in gold-rimmed glasses and after hesitating a moment, Shadow follows, the cat vanishing. They reach a large old building on a row of boarded-up houses. The sign beside the door said IBIS & JACQUEL. A FAMILY FIRM. FUNERAL PARLOR. SINCE 1863. The man in gold rims introduces himself as Mr Ibis and he thought he should buy Shadow a spot of supper, he’s afraid his friend here has some work which needs doing.

Somewhere in America, NY scared Salim, he clutching his sample case protectively with both hands, holding it to his chest. He was scared of black people, the way they stared at him, and Orthodox Jews, he was scared of the sheer quantity of the people, all shapes and sizes of people, as they spill from their high, filthy buildings onto sidewalks. He was scared of the honking hullabaloo of traffic and of the air, which smelled dirty and sweet, and nothing like the air of Oman. Salim had been in America a week, each day visiting 2 or 3 different offices, opening his sample case, shows them the copper trinkets, rings and bottles and tiny flashlights, models of the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, then each night writing a fax to his brother-in-law Faud at home in Muscat, informing him he hadn’t taken any orders, or on one happy day, taking several, but not yet enough to cover airfare or hotel bill.

Salim didn’t know why his brother-in-law’s business partners booked him into Paramount Hotel, he finding it confusing, claustrophobic, expensive, and alien. Faud is Salim’s sister’s husband, he not a rich man, but the co-owner of a small trinket factory, making knickknacks from copper, brooches, rings, bracelets, and statues. Everything made for export to other Arab countries, Europe, America. Salim had been working for Faud for half a year, he scaring Salim a little, the tone of his faxes becoming harsher.

In the evening, Salim sat in his hotel

room reading the Qur’an telling himself this would pass, his stay in this strange world limited and finite. His brother-in-law gave him a grand for miscellaneous traveling expenses and the money, which seemed a huge amount when he first saw it, was evaporating quicker than Salim could believe. When he first arrived, scared of being seen as a cheap Arab, he tipped everyone, handing extra bills to everyone he met, then deciding he was being taken advantage of, even laughing at him, and he stopped tipping altogether. On his first and only ride by subway, he got lost and confused, and missed his appointment, now taking taxis only when he had to, and the rest of the time, walking.

He’d stumble into overheated offices, his cheeks numb with cold, sweating under his coat, shoes soaked by slush, and when the winds blow down the avenues, he felt a cold on his exposed skin which is so intense, it’s like being struck. He never ate at the hotel, since the hotel bill was covered by Faud’s business partners, but he must pay for his own food. Instead he bought from falafel houses, and at little food stores, smuggling it to the room in his coat for days before realizing nobody cared, but felt strange carrying bags of food into the dimly lit elevators, Salim having to squint to see his floor button. Salim is upset, a new fax waiting when he woke in the morning with a curt, alternately, chiding, stern, disappointment, Salim letting them down, his sister, Faud, Faud’s business partners the Sultan of Oman, the whole Arab world.

Unless he was able to get the orders, Faud would no longer consider it his obligation to employ Salim, they depending on him, his hotel too expensive, what was Salim doing with their money. Living like a Sultan in America? Salim read the fax in his room, which was always too hot and stifling, so he’d opened a window last night, and now it was too cold, and sat there, his face frozen into an expression of complete misery. Then Salim walks downtown holding his sample case like it had diamonds and rubies inside, going to an appointment for Panglobal Imports, which handled almost half the ornamental souvenirs, which enters the U.S. from the Far East.

Despite this, the office was dingy as he waited, half hour early for his appointment, and still waiting after a half hour past his appointment time, and then hours, as a group of men exit the office at 12:30pm, and when 1pm has the secretary pull out her own lunch, she acts surprised when again, he asks if she could tell the businessman he’s waiting, for he’s still here, she saying he was at lunch in a stuffed-up cold voice. When it’s 3pm, the woman says, he won’t be coming back in for the day, and they only make appointments over the phone, when Salim asks, so he leaves and it’s raining, so he tries hailing a cab, all of them passing him. One cab accelerates over a puddle, spraying freezing muddy water on his clothes, he at first, contemplating jumping in front of a moving car, but realized his brother-in-law would be more concerned about the sample case, and he’d only bring grief to his sister, his parents and love life always finding him a slight embarrassment, the cars were probably not going fast enough to kill him. A battered yellow taxi pulls up beside him and he gratefully abandoned his train of thought, Salim getting in.

He tells the cabbie where he was going, and getting a grunt of confirmation, he wearing black sunglasses as night fell, Salim wondering if he had eye problems. When the man swears in Arabic as a truck pulls out in front of him, saying, by the Beard of the Prophet, Salim stares at the dashboard trying to read the name, and asking in Arabic, how long had he been driving a cab. He answers, a decade, asking where he’s from, Salim answering Muscat in Oman. The man says he’d been to Oman a long time ago, had he heard of Ubar, Salim agreeing he had, The Lost City of Towers, they found it in the desert, 5, 10 years ago, was he with the expedition excavating it?

He answers, something like this, it was a good city. On most nights there’d be 3, 4000 people camped there, every traveler would rest at Ubar and the music would play, and the wine would flow like water, and the water would flow, as well, which was why the city existed. Salim says, this is what he’d heard, and it perished what, 1, 2000 years ago, the driver saying nothing. They’re stopped at a red light, but when it turns green, the driver doesn’t move, despite the immediate horn blares behind them, hesitantly Salim touches the man’s shoulder, and his head jerks up with a start, and he puts his foot on the gas, moving them on.

The man curses in English, fuckshitfuckfuck, Salim commenting he must be very tired, the man saying, he’d been driving this Allah-forgotten taxi for 30 hours, it’s too much, before this sleeping for 5 hours and driving 14 hours before this, they shorthanded before Xmas. Salim says, he hoped he’d made a lot of money. The driver sighs and says, not much, one fare running off into an airport without paying, he having to pay the tolls on his drive back. Salim commiserates by sharing his experience today and his brother-in-law hating him, only in NY a week, and eating his money and selling nothing.

The man asks what he sells and Salim admits, shit, and as they’re pointed down another street by a cop with a truck blocking traffic, they end up in a gridlock. The driver dozes off again, and Salim shakes the man’s shoulder and knocks off his sunglasses by accident and brushing the man’s face. Salim sees his eyes before the man gets his sunglasses on and he asks if he’s going to kill him? The driver’s lips are pressed together, he saying, no.

Salim shares his grandmother swore she’d seen an ifrit or a marid late one evening on the edge of the desert, they thinking it was only a sandstorm, a little wind, but she denies this, seeing its face, eyes like his, burning flames. The driver smiles, but he can’t tell if there’s humor behind it or not, he saying the grandmothers came here too. Salim asks, were there many jinn in NY, the reply no, not many of them. Salim states there are angels and there are men, who Allah made from mud, then there are people of the fire, the jinn.

The driver states, people know nothing about his people here, they think they grant wishes, if he could, did he think he’d be driving a cab? Salim says he didn’t understand. The driver seems gloomy, Salim watching his face in the rearview mirror as he spoke, staring at the ifrit’s dark lips. The driver says, they believed they grant wishes, why do they believe this, he sleeps in one stinking room in Brooklyn and drive this taxi for any stinking freak who has the money to ride in it and for some who don’t.

He drives them where they need to go and sometimes they tip him, sometimes they pay him. His lower lip started trembling, the ifrit seeming on edge, one of them shat on the back seat once, he having to clean it before he could take the cab back, how could he do that? He had to clean wet shit from the seat, is this right? Salim puts a hand on the ifrit’s shoulder patting him, the ifrit placing his on top of Salim’s for a moment.

Salim thinks of the desert, red sands blowing a dust-storm through his thoughts, and the scarlet silks of the tents surrounding the lost city of Ubar flap and billow through his mind. As he drives he says, the old believe, they don’t piss in holes since the Prophet told them the jinn live in holes. We know the angels throw flaming stars at us when we try to listen to their conversations, but even for the old, when they come to this country, we’re very far away, back there, he didn’t have to drive a cab. Salim says he’s sorry and the driver admits it’s a bad time, a storm is coming and it scares him, he’d do anything to get away.

The 2 stay quiet the rest of the way to the hotel and when Salim gets out of the cab he gives the ifrit $20 and tells him to keep the change. Then with a sudden burst of courage, he gives his room #, the driver not replying and a young woman clambering into the back of the cab, he pulling into the cold and rain. 6 p.m. Salim still hadn’t written a return fax to his brother-in-law, he going out in the rain and buying himself tonight’s kabob and fries. It’s only been a week, but he felt he’d become heavier, rounder, softening in this country of NY.

When he returns to the hotel, he’s surprised to see the driver in the lobby, hands in his pockets, staring at a display of black and white postcards. When he sees Salim, he smiles self-consciously, he saying he’d called his room, but there wasn’t an answer, so he thought he’d wait. Salim also smiles and touches his arm, saying, He’s here. They go in the elevator together and ascend to the 5th floor holding hands.

When they get to his room, the ifrit asks to use his bathroom, he feeling very dirty, Salim nodding and sitting on his bed, which filled most of the white room and listened to the sound of the shower, Salim taking his shoes, socks, then the rest of his clothes off. The driver exits the bathroom wet, with a towel wrapped around his waist, not wearing his sunglasses and in the dim room his eyes burning with scarlet flames. Salim blinks back tears and says, he wishes he could see what he sees, the ifrit whispering, he doesn’t grant wishes, dropping his towel and pushing Salim gently, but irresistibly down onto the bed. It’s an hour or more, before the ifrit comes, thrusting and grinding into Salim’s mouth, Salim already coming twice time in this time (?).

The jinn’s semen tastes strange, firey and burns Salim’s throat. He goes to the bathroom to wash his mouth and when he returned to the bedroom the jinn is already asleep and snoring peacefully. Salim lays beside him and cuddles close to the ifrit, imagining the desert on his skin. As he starts dropping off, he realizes he hasn’t written his fax to Faud and feels guilty.

Deep inside he feels empty and alone, he reaching out and resting his hand on the ifrit’s (somehow) swollen cock, and comforted, sleeps. They wake early in the morning, moving against each other, and once again getting intimate, at one point Salim realizing he’s crying and the ifrit kissing his tears away with burning lips. Salim finally asks, what’s his name, he answers, there’s a name on his driving permit, but it isn’t his. After, Salim couldn’t remember where the sex stopped and dreams started.

When Salim wakes, the cold sun is creeping into the white room and he’s alone. He also discovers his sample case is gone along with his suitcase, wallet, passport, and flight tickets back to Oman. He locates a pair of jeans, t-shirt and dust colored woolen sweater on the floor. Beneath them he discovers a driver license with the name Ibrahim bin Irem, taxi permit matching, and a ring of keys with an address written on a piece of paper attached in English.

The photos on the license and permit don’t look like him much, but it also didn’t look much like the ifrit. The telephone rings, front desk calling to let him know he’d already checked out, and guests needed to leave soon, so they could service the room for the next occupant. Salim says, he doesn’t grant wishes, tasting the way the words shaped themselves in his mouth. He feels oddly lightheaded as he dresses, NY very simple: avenues run north to south, streets run west to east, how hard could it be?, he asks himself. He tosses the car keys in the air and catches them, then puts on the black plastic sunglasses he found in the pocket, he leaving the hotel room and looking for his cab.

The week before Xmas is usually quiet in the funeral parlor, Shadow earns over supper. Mr. Ibis explains, the lingering one’s are holding on for one final Xmas or even New Year’s, while others for who other people’s good humor will prove too painful, haven’t been tipped over the edge by the last showing of, It’s a Wonderful Life, or haven’t encountered the final straw, or in other words, the final sprig of holly, which breaks not the camel’s, but reindeer’s back. He makes a little noise as he said it, half smirk, half snort, which suggested he’d uttered a well-honed phrase, which he was particularly fond. Ibis and Jacquel was a small, family-owned funeral home, one of the last truly independent funeral homes in the area or so Mr. Ibis maintained.

Most fields of human merchandising value nationwide brand identities, Mr Ibis says, he speaking in explanations, a gentle, earnest lecturing, which gave Shadow the feeling of a college professor, who used to work out at Muscle Farm and who couldn’t talk, only discourse, expound. Shadow figures out within the first few minutes of meeting Mr. Ibis his expected part in any chat with the funeral director was to say as little as possible. They were sitting in a small restaurant 2 blocks from his funeral home, Shadow’s supper consisting of an all-day full breakfast - it coming with hush puppies - while Mr. Ibis picked at a slice of coffeecake. This, he believed was due to people liking to know what they’re getting ahead of time, since McDonald’s, Wal-mart, etc. store brands maintained and visible across the country, wherever one goes getting something which is, with small regional variation, the same, Ibis states.

Continuing, in the field of funeral homes, however, things are different. One needs to feel one’s getting small-town personal service from someone with a calling to the profession. With personal attention to them and their loved one in a time of great loss. People wishing to know their grief is happening on a local level, not a national one, but in all branches of industry - including death, one making one’s money from operating in bulk, from buying in quantity, from centralizing one’s operations.

It’s not pretty, but it’s true, trouble is no one wants to know their loved one’s are traveling on a cooler-van to some big old converted warehouse where they have 20, 50, 100 cadavers on the go, no sir. Folks want to think they’re going to a family concern, somewhere they’ll be treated with respect by someone who’ll tip his hat to them if he sees them on the street. Shadow’s memory of Mr. Ibis would always place him shorter than he was, he rediscovering he was well over 6 feet, with a crane-like stoop. Ibis continues, so when the big companies come in to buy the name of the company, they pay the funeral directors to stay on, they create the appearance of diversity, but this merely the tip of the gravestone.

In reality, they’re as local as Burger King, and for their own reasons, they are truly independent. They do all their own embalming, and it’s the finest in the country, although nobody knows it, but them. They don’t do cremations, though, they could make more money if they had their own crematorium, but it goes against what they’re good at, what Mr. Ibis’ business partner says is, if the Lord gives on a talent or skill, one has an obligation to use it as best one can, doesn’t he agree? Shadow replies, sounds good to him.

The Lord gave Ibis’ business partner dominion over the dead, just as he’d given Ibis skill with words. Fine things, words, he writes books of tales, nothing literary. Only for his own amusement, accounts of lives. He paused, and by the time Shadow realized he should’ve asked if he could be allowed to read one, the moment passes.

Ibis continues, anyway what we give them is continuity, there’s been an Ibis and Jacquel in business there for almost 200 years. We weren’t always funeral directors though, before we were undertakers. Shadow asks, and before this? Ibis smiles and says a little smugly, well, we go back a long way.

Of course it wasn’t til after the War Between the States, we found our niche there. This was when we’d become the funeral parlor for the colored folks thereabouts. Before this no one thought of them as colored - foreign maybe, exotic and dark, but not colored. Once the war was over, pretty soon, no one could remember a time when we weren’t perceived as black, his business partner, always had darker skin than him.

It was an easy transition, mostly one was what they think one is, it’s only strange when they talk about African Americans, making him think of the people from Ophir, Nubia, Punt, and we never thought themselves as Africans, we were the people of the Nile (which is Africa…). Shadow responds, so they were Egyptians, Mr. Ibis pushing his lower lip upward then let his head bob from side to side, as if it were on a spring, weighing the plus and minuses, seeing things from both points of view (Fortunately, I know something Gaiman doesn’t, The God Genes Decoded answers his ignorance, but the short answer he couldn’t find was the Khemau). Well, yes and no, ‘Egyptians‘ makes him think of the folk who live there now, the ones who built their cities over their graveyards, and palaces, do we look like him? Shadow shrugs, he’s seen black guys who look like Mr. Ibis, he’d seen white guys with tans who looked like him.

The waitress asks after Ibis’ coffeecake and he responds, the best he ever had, as she refills their coffees, he tells her to give his best to her ma, she saying, she’ll do this, before bustling off. Mr. Ibis says in undertone, one doesn’t want to ask after the health of anyone if one’s a funeral director, they think maybe it’s to scout for business, should they see if his room is ready? Their breath steams of the night air, Xmas lights twinkling in windows of stores they passed. Shadow states, it’s good of him to put him up, he appreciates it.

Ibis says, we owe Shadow’s employer a number of favors, and Lord knows we had the room, it’s a big old house, we’re used to having been more of them, now it’s only 3 of them, he won’t be in the way. Shadow asks if he had any idea how long he’s meant to stay with him, and Ibis shook his head saying, he hadn’t said, but we’re happy to have him there, and we can find him work, if he isn’t squeamish, and if he treats the dead with respect. Shadow asks, so what were they doing there, in Cairo, was it only the name of something? Ibis responds, no not at all, actually this region took it’s names from them although people barely knew it, it being a trading post back in the old days.

Shadow asks, frontier time? Ibis replies, he may call it this, then, Evening, Mizz Simmons! and a merry Xmas to her too! The folk who brought him here came up the MS a long time back. Shadow stops in the street and stares, was he trying to tell him ancient Egyptians came here to trade 5000 years ago?

Mr. Ibis doesn’t reply, but smirks loudly, then says, 3530 years ago, give or take. Ok, Shadow replies, he’ll buy it, he guesses, what were they trading, Ibis stating, not much, animal skins, some food, copper from the mines in the upper peninsula, the whole thing rather a disappointment, not worth the effort. They stayed there long enough to believe in us, to sacrifice to us, and for a handful of the traders, to die of fever and be buried here, leaving us behind. Ibis stops dead in the middle of the sidewalk, turned around slowly, arms extended and continuing, this country’s been Grand Central Station for 10,000 years or more, he saying to him, what about Columbus?

Shadow says, sure what about him. Ibis states, Columbus did what people’d been doing for thousands of years, there nothing special about coming to America, he’d been writing stories about it from time to time, they starting to walk again. Shadow asks, true stories? Ibis replies, up to a point, yes, he’ll let him read one or two if he liked, it’s all there for anyone who has eyes to see it.

Personally, this speaking as a subscriber to Scientific American here - he feels very sorry for the professionals whenever they find another confusing skull, which shows the Ainu, the Japanese original race, were in America 9k years ago, here’s another, which shows there were Polynesians in CA nearly 2k years later, and all scientists mutter and puzzle over who’s descended from who, missing the point entirely. Heaven knew what’ll happen if they ever actually found the Hopi emergence tunnels, it’ll shake a few things up, just wait. Did the Irish come to America in the dark ages, he may ask him? Of course they did, and the Welsh, and the Vikings, while the Africans from the West coast - what in later days they called the slave coast or the ivory coast - they were trading with South America, and the Chinese visited Oregon a couple times, they calling it Fu Sang.

The Basque established their secret sacred fishing grounds off the coast of Newfoundland 1200 years back. Now, he supposes he’s going to say, but Mr. Ibis, these people were primitives, they didn’t have radio controls and vitamins and jet airplanes. Shadow hadn’t said anything and hadn’t planned on it, but he felt it was required of him, so he responds, well, weren’t they? The last dead leaves of autumn crackling underfoot, winter-crisp.

Ibis says, the misconception is men didn’t travel long distances in boats before the days of Columbus. Yet NZ and Tahiti and countless Pacific islands were settled by people in boats, whose navigation would’ve put Columbus to shame, and the wealth of Africa was from trading. Although this was mostly to the east to India and China, his people, the Nile folk discovering early on, a reed boat will take one around the world, if one has the patience and enough jars of sweetwater. The biggest problem with coming to America in the old days was there wasn’t a lot there anyone wanted to trade, and it was much too far away.

They’d reached a large house, built in the Queen Anne style, Shadow wondering who Queen Anne was and why she had been so fond of Addams Family-style houses. It was the only building on the block not locked up with boarded-over windows. They went through the gate and walked around the back of the building. Mr. Ibis unlocks large double doors with a key attached to his keychain, they going through and into a large unheated room with a very tall, dark-skinned man holding a large metal scalpel, and a dead girl in her late teens lying on a long porcelain object resembling both a table and a sink.

There were several photos of the dead girl pinned up on a cork-board on the wall above the body, she smiling in one, a high school headshot. In another she was standing in a line with 3 other girls wearing what could have been prom dresses and her black hair tied above her head in an intricate knot-work. Cold in front of them, her hair was down, loose over her shoulders and matted with dried blood. Ibis introducing his partner, Mr. Jacquel, who states, we’d already met, and to forgive him if he doesn’t shake hands.

Shadow looks down at the girl on the table and asked what happened to her. Jacquel answers, poor taste in boyfriends, Mr. Ibis adding, it’s not always fatal, with a sigh, this time it was, since he’d been drunk and had a knife, and she told him she thought she was pregnant, and he didn’t believe it was his. Jacquel trails off, she was stabbed…, counting, 5x, and then goes into great detail of the length of entry wound and where on the body they were, recording by stopping and starting with a foot-pedal, a microphone dangling above the embalming table. Shadow asks, so he’s the coroner, as well, Ibis answering, coroner is a political appointment around there, Jacquel’s job was to kick the corpse and if it didn’t kick back, he signed the death certificate.

Jacquel’s what we call a prosecutor, he working for the county medical examiner, doing autopsies, saving tissue samples for analysis, and he’s already photographed her wounds. Jacquel ignores them as he took a big scalpel and made a deep incision in a large V, which started at both collarbones, and met at the bottom of her breastbone, then turning the V in to a Y, another deep incision, which continued from breastbone to pubis, he then picking up what looked like a small, heavy chrome drill with a medallion-sized round saw blade at the business end. He turns it on, and cut through the ribs at both sides of her breastbone, the girl opening like a purse. Shadow suddenly becomes aware of a mild, but unpleasantly penetrating, pungent, meaty smell.

Shadow comments, he thought it’d smell worse, Jacquel replying, she’s pretty fresh, and the intestines weren’t pierced, so it doesn’t smell like shit. Shadow found himself looking away, not from revulsion as he’d have expected, but a strong desire to give the girl some privacy, it being hard to be more naked than this open thing. Jacquel ties off the intestines, glistening and snakelike in her belly, below the tummy and deep in the pelvis. He runs them through his fingers, foot after foot of them, described them as normal to the mic, put them in a bucket on the floor, then sucked all the blood from her chest (I haven’t changed the wording).

He says in the mic, there were 3 lacerations, which filled with clotted and liquefied blood. Jacquel grasped her heart and cut at its top, turning it in his hand, and examining it. He speaks into the mic again of seeing 2 lacerations, the depth and location. Jacquel removed each lung, one having been stabbed and collapsed, he weighing them, and the heart, photographing each wound, and slicing a small piece of tissue from each lung and placing into a jar.

Ibis supplies, formaldehyde, Jacquel talking in the mic to describe what he was doing, what he saw, and removing the girl’s liver, tummy, spleen, pancreas, both kidneys, uterus, and ovaries. He weighs each one and reports they were normal and uninjured, taking a small slice from each, and putting them in jars of formaldehyde. From the heart, liver, and 1 kidney, he cuts another slice and chews them slowly, eating while he worked. Shadow somehow thought this seemed a good thing to do, respectful, not obscene, Jacquel then asks him, so he wants to stay there with them for a spell, as he chewed the slice of the girl’s heart.

Shadow replies, if he’ll have him, Ibis replying, certainly we will, no reason why not and plenty of reasons why, he’ll be under their protection as long as he’s there. Jacquel posits, he hopes Shadow doesn’t mind sleeping under the same roof as the dead. Shadow thinks of the touch of Laura’s lips, butter and cold and states, no, not as long as they stay dead, anyhow. Jacquel turns and looks at him with dark brown eyes as quizzical and cold as a desert dog’s, saying they stayed dead there.

Shadow responds, it seems to him the dead come back pretty easy. Ibis replies, not at all, even zombies, they make them out of the living with a little powder, a little chanting, a little push, and then a zombie. They live, but they believe they’re dead, but to truly bring the dead back to life in their bodies, this takes power. He hesitates then says, in the old land, in the old days, it was easier then.

Jacquel adds one could bind the ka (‘soul’, learned from God Genes Decoded) of a man to his body for 5,000 years, binding or loosing, but this was a long time ago. He takes all the organs, which he’d removed and replaced them, respectfully, in the body cavity. Once placing the intestines and the breastbone, he pulled the skin edges near each other, then takes a thick needle and thread and with deft, quick strokes, he sews it up, like stitching a baseball, the cadaver transforming from meat to girl once more. Jacquel states, he needs a beer and pulls his rubble gloves off and drops them in a bin, then dropping his dark brown overalls into a hamper.

Then he takes the cardboard tray of jars of slices of organs, and asks, coming? They walked up the back stairs to the kitchen, which was brown and white, a sober and respectable room, which to Shadow, looked like it was last decorated in 1920. Jacquel opens a huge Kelvinator, rattling itself by one wall and puts the jars inside, and taking out 3 brown bottles. Ibis opens a glass-fronted cupboard and takes 3 tall glasses, gesturing for Shadow to sit at the kitchen table.

Ibis poured the beer and passed a glass to Shadow, and Jacquel, it a fine, dark and bitter beer. Shadow declares, good beer, Ibis replying, we brewed it ourselves, in the old days, the women did the brewing, they were better brewers than we were, but now it was only the 3 of them there, he, Jacquel, and her, pointing to a small brown cat, fast asleep in a cat-basket in the corner of the room. There were more of them at the start, but Set left them to explore 200 years ago, must be, by now. We got a postcard from him in San Francisco 1905 or ‘06, then nothing, while poor Horus, he trails off and sighs, shaking his head.

Jacquel fills in, he still saw him, on occasion, on the way to a pickup, sipping his beer. Shadow states, he’ll work for his keep while he’s there, they tell him what they need doing and he’ll do it. Jacquel agrees, saying we’ll find work for him, the small brown cat opening her eyes and stretched to her feet. She pads across the kitchen and pushes at Shadow’s boot with her head, he scratching her forehead and back of the ears, and scruff of her neck, she arching then springing to his lap, pushing herself against his chest and touching her cold nose to his, then curls in his lap and goes back to sleep.

He puts his hand down to pet her, acting like she was in the safest place in the world, Shadow comforted. The beer left a pleasant buzz in Shadow’s head, Jacquel stating his room is at the top of the stairs by the bathroom, his work clothes will be hanging in the closet, he’ll see, he’ll want to wash up and shave first, he guessed. Shadow did, and showered, shaving nervously with a straight razor Jacquel loaned him. As he looks in the mirror after cleaning his face, he places the razor against his throat like someone else were holding his hand.

He thinks how easy a way out it’d be, no more mysteries and conspiracies, only quiet and rest forever, this a perfect place to do it with the 2 guys downstairs. Then the door to the bathroom swings open a few inches, and the brown cat sticks her head through and goes, mrr?, at him curiously, he responding, hey, he thought he locked the door. The bedroom he steps back into had the same ‘20s decoration and smelled musty, the sheets seeming damp to the touch. Clothes were on the bed and black shoes on a worn Persian carpet beside the bed.

He dressed, and noticed the clothes, were good quality, though none were new. He wondered who they’d belonged to, and if they were a dead man’s, but after looking in the mirror noting they fit perfectly. It seemed his mirrored self was smiling mockingly, and kept doing so, despite being relieved it scratched the side of his nose as he had. He says to it, hey, does he know something he doesn’t?, feeling foolish, the cat coming in, creaking the door open and up onto the windowsill.

Shadow says, hey, he shut the door, he knows he did, the cat looking at him, interested, her eyes dark yellow, the color of amber, then she jumps from the sill onto the bed and curls up to go back to sleep, a circle of cat left on the old counterpane. Shadow left the bedroom door open, so the cat could leave, and the room could air a little, he walking downstairs as they creaked and grumbled, protesting his weight like they wanted to be left in peace. Jacquel comments, damn, he looks good, he waiting at the bottom of the stairs and dressed similarly to Shadow in a black suit, he then asking if he’s ever driven a hearse, Shadow replying, no. Jacquel says, there’s a first time for everything, then, it’s parked out front.

An old woman had died, her name was Lila Goodchild, and at Jacquel’s direction, Shadow carried the folded gurney up the narrow stairs to her bedroom and unfolded it next to her bed. He took out a blue translucent bodybag, laid it next to the dead woman and unzipped it. She was wearing a pink nightgown and quilted robe, Shadow lifted and wrapped her, fragile and almost weightless, in a blanket and placed it onto the bag, zipping it shut and putting it on the gurney. While Shadow did this, Jacquel talked with a very old man who’d been married to Lila, or rather Jacquel listened, whilst the man talked about how ungrateful his children had been, and grandchildren as well, which wasn’t their fault, it was their parents, the apple not falling far from the tree, and he thought he’d raised them better than this.

Shadow and Jacquel wheel the gurney to the narrow flight of stairs, the old man following and still talking, mostly about money and greed, and ingratitude. He wore bedroom slippers, Shadow carrying the heavier bottom end of the gurney downstairs and out onto the streets, then he wheeled it along the icy sidewalk to the hearse. Jacquel opens the rear door and Shadow hesitates, Jacquel instructing, just push it in there, the support will fold away. Shadow does without trouble and Jacquel shows him how to strap it in securely after rolling it onto the floor of the hearse.

Shadow then closes up the hearse while Jacquel listened to the old man, unmindful of the cold, an old man in slippers and bathrobe out on the wintry sidewalk telling Jacquel how his children were vultures, no better than hovering vultures, waiting to take what little he and Lila had scraped together, and how they’d fled to St. Louis, to Memphis, to Miami, and how they wound up in Cairo. How relieved he was Lila hadn’t died in a nursing home, how scared he was he would. They walked him back into the house, up the stairs to his room, a small TV droning from one corner of the couple’s bedroom. As Shadow passed it he noticed the new reader grinning and winking at him, when he was sure no one was looking in his direction, he gave it the finger.

Jacquel says when they were back in the hearse, they’ve got no money and he’ll come by to see Ibis tomorrow, would choose the cheapest funeral, her friends will persuade him to do her right, and give her a proper send off in the front room, he suspected, but he’ll grumble, got no money, nobody around there has money these days. Anyway, he’ll be dead in half a year, a year at the outside. Snowflakes tumbled in front of the headlights as Shadow asks, is he sick? Jacquel answering, it ain’t this, women survive their men, men like him don’t live long when their women are gone.

He’ll see, he’ll just start wandering, all the familiar things are going to be gone with her, he’ll get tired and fade, then he’ll give up, and then he’ll be gone, maybe pneumonia or cancer, or his heart will stop. Old age, all the fight goes out, then we die. Shadow asks if he believes in the soul, not quite the question he’d been going to ask and was surprised to hear it come out, intending to say it less directly, but there being nothing less direct he could say. Jacquel replies, depends, back in his day, they had it all set up, one lines up when one dies, and answer for one’s evil deeds and for the good deeds, and if evil outweighed a feather, they’d feed the soul and heart to Ammet, the Eater of Souls.

Shadow states, he must’ve eaten a lot of people, Jacquel replying, not as many as he’d think, it’s a really heavy feather, we had it made special. One had to be pretty damn evil to tip the scales on this baby. Then he has Shadow stop at a gas station to fill up. The streets were quiet in the way they only were when the first snow falls, Shadow stating, it’ll be a white Xmas, as he pumped gas.

Jacquel replying, yup, shit, that boy was one lucky son of a virgin. Shadow asks, Jesus? Jacquel continues, lucky, lucky guy, he could fall in a cesspit and come up smelling like roses. Hell, it’s not even his birthday, did he know this? He took it from Mithras, has he run into Mithras, yet? Red cap. Nice kid.

Shadow replies, he doesn’t think so. Jacquel replies, well, he’s never seen Mithras around here, he was an army brat and could be back in the Middle East taking it easy, but he expects he’s probably gone by now, it happens. One day every soldier in the empire has to shower in the blood of their sacrificial bull. The next they don’t even remember his birthday.

Jacquel continues after Shadow has the hearse fishtail for trying to stop at a light in the empty road and when driving once more keeping it in 2nd gear and 10 mph. He says, this is good, so yeah, Jesus does pretty good over here, but he met a guy who said he saw him hitching in Afghanistan, and nobody was stopping to give him a ride. It all depends where one is. Shadow states, he thinks a real storm’s coming, referring to the weather.

When Jacquel eventually answers, he’s not talking of the weather, look at him and Ibis, we’ll be out of business in a few years, we’ve got savings put aside for the lean years, but those have been there a long while, and every year we only get leaner. Horus is crazy, really, bugfuck crazy, spends all his time as a hawk, eats roadkill, what kind of life is this? He’s seen Bast, and we’re in better shape than most of them, at least we’ve got a little belief to be going along with. Most of the suckers out there barely have this, it’s like the funeral business, the big guys are going to buy one up one day, like it or not, since they’re bigger and more efficient, and since they work.

Fighting’s not going to change a damned thing, since we lost this particular battle when we came to this green land a hundred years ago or a thousand or 10 thousand. We arrived and America just didn’t care we had. So we get bought out or we press on or hit the road, so yes, he’s right, the storm’s coming. Shadow turns onto the street where the houses were, all but one of them dead, their windows blind and boarded, Jacquel directing he take the back alley.

Shadow backs the hearse til it nearly touched the double doors at the rear of the house, Ibis opening the hearse and the mortuary doors. Shadow unbuckles the gurney and pulls it out. The wheel supports drop down and he wheels it to the embalming table, then picking up Lila Goodchild like a sleeping child and placed her carefully on the table as if he was scared to wake her. Jacquel offers, he had a transfer board so he didn’t have to carry her, Shadow replying, ain’t nothing, starting to sound more like Jacquel, he’s a big guy, it didn’t bother him.

As a kid Shadow was small for his age, all elbows and knees, the only photo of Shadow as a kid, Laura had liked enough to frame, showing a serious child with unruly hair and dark eyes, standing beside a table laden high with cakes and cookies. Shadow thought the pic might’ve been taken at an embassy Xmas party, as he’d been dressed in a bowtie and his best clothes, as one may dress a doll. He was looking solemnly out at the adult world, which surrounded him, they having moved too much, he and his mother. First around Europe from embassy to embassy, where his mother worked as a communicator in the foreign service, transcribing and sending classified telegrams across the world, and then, when he was 8, back to the U.S., where his mother, now too sporadically ill to hold down a steady job, had moved from city to city restlessly spending a year here or there, temping when she was well enough.

They never spent long enough any place for Shadow to make friends, to feel at home, to relax, and Shadow had been a small child… he’d grown so fast, in the spring of his 13th year. The local kids picked on him, goading him into fights they knew they couldn’t fail to win, and after which Shadow would run, angry and often crying to the boy’s room to wash mud or blood from his face before anyone could see. Then came summer, long, magical, 13th summer, which he spent keeping out of the way of the bigger kids, swimming in the local pool, reading library books at poolside. At the start of summer barely being able to swim and by the end of August, swimming length after length in an easy crawl, diving from the high board, ripening to a deep brown from the sun and water.

In Sept, he’d returned to school to discover the boys who had made him miserable were small, soft things no longer capable of upsetting him. The two who tried were taught better manners, hard, fast, and painfully, Shadow finding he’d redefined himself, he no longer able to be a quiet kid, doing his best to remain unobtrusively at the back of things. He was too big for this, too obvious. By the end of the year, he was on the swimming team and on the weight-lifting team, and the couch was courting him for the triathlon team.

He liked being big and strong, it gave him an identity, he having been a shy, quiet, bookish kid, and this had been painful. Now he was a big dumb guy, and nobody expected him to be able to do anything more than move a sofa into the next room on his own; Nobody til Laura, anyway. Ibis had prepared dinner, rice and boiled greens for himself and Jacquel, explaining he isn’t a meat-eater, while Jacquel gets all the meat he needed in the course of his work. Beside Shadow’s place was a carton of chicken pieces from KFC and a bottle of beer, more chicken than Shadow could finish, so sharing the leftovers with the cat after removing the skin and crust, then shredding the meat for her.

Shadow talks about a guy in prison named Jackson as he ate, sharing he worked in the prison library, and told him they changed the name to KFC from Kentucky Fried Chicken, since they don’t serve real chicken anymore, it a genetically modified mutant thing, like a giant centipede with no head, only segment after segment of legs and breasts and wings, being fed through nutrient tubes. Jackson said the government wouldn’t let them use the word chicken. Ibis raised his eyebrows and asks, he thinks this is true, Shadow answering, nope, now his old cellmate, Low Key, said they changed the name since the word fried had become a bad word. Maybe they wanted people to think the chicken cooked itself.

After dinner, Jacquel excused himself to go down to the mortuary, Ibis went to his study to write, and Shadow sat in the kitchen for a little longer, feeding fragments of chicken breast to the little brown cat, sipping his beer. When the beer and chicken were gone, he washed the plates and cutlery, putting them on the rack to dry, and went upstairs. He took a bath in the claw-footed bathtub, brushed his teeth and decided to buy a new one the next day. When he returned to the bedroom the little brown cat was asleep at the foot of the bed, curled up in a crescent.

He found several striped cotton pjs in the middle drawer of a vanity, which looked 70 years old, but smelled fresh, pulling on a pair which fit perfectly, like the suit had, as if tailored for him. There was a small stack of Reader’s Digest on the side table, none of them older than Mar. 1960. The same Jackson, the prison library guy, who also had mentioned a story of black freight trains which the government used to haul political prisoners off to Secret Northern CA Concentration Camps, moving across the country at night, he’d also told Shadow the CIA used the Reader’s Digest as a front for their branch offices around the world, and said every Reader’s Digest office in every country was really CIA. Shadow cracks the window so the cat can get on the balcony, then turns on the bedside lamp, climbs in bed and reads a little to turn off his mind and get the last few days out of his head.

He chooses the dullest-looking Digest for the dullest articles, and noticed he was falling asleep halfway through, I Am John’s Pancreas, barely having time to turn out the light and putting his head down before sleeping. Later, Shadow is never able to recollect the sequences and details of this dream, the attempts to remember producing nothing other than a table of dark images, under exposed in the darkroom of his mind. There was a girl, he’d met somewhere, and now they’re walking across a bridge. It spans a small lake, in the middle of a town, the wind ruffling the surface of the lake, making waves tipped with whitecaps, which seemed to Shadow to be tiny hands reaching for him.

The woman says, down there, wearing a leopard-print skirt, flipping and tossing in the wind, and the flesh between the top of her stockings and her skirt was creamy and soft. On the bridge, before God and the world, Shadow went down on his knees in front of her, and buried his head in her crotch, drinking in the intoxicating jungle female scent of her. He becomes aware of his erection in real life in his dream, a rigid, pounding monstrous thing as painful in its hardness as the erections he had as a boy as he crashed into puberty with no idea what they were, only knowing they scared him. He pulled away and looked upward, still unable to see her face, but his mouth sought hers and her lips were soft against his.

Hands cupping her breasts and then running across satin smooth skin, pushing into, and parting the furs, which hid her waist sliding into the wonderful cleft of her, which warmed and wetted and parted for him, opening to his hand like a flower. The woman purrs against him ecstatically, her hand moving to his hardness and squeezing, he pushing the bed sheets away and rolling onto her, his hand parting her thighs and her hand guiding him between her legs, where one thrust, one magical push, and he’s back in his old prison cell with her, kissing her deeply. She wrapped her arms tightly around him and clamped her legs around his, holding him tight, so he couldn’t pull out, not even if he wanted. He’s never kissed lips so soft, her tongue was sandpaper-rough though.

He asks, who is she? No answer given, only pushing him onto his back and in one lithe movement, straddling and riding him, but more like insinuating herself against him in a series of silken-smooth waves, each more powerful than the one before, strokes, beats, and rhythms, which crashed against his mind and body as the wind-waves on the lake splashed against the shore. Her nails were needle-sharp and they pierced his sides, raking them, but not feeling pain, only pleasure, everything transmuted by some alchemy into moments of utter pleasure, he struggling to find himself, to talk, his head now filled with sand dunes and desert winds. He again asks who she is, gasping for the words, she staring at him with eyes the color of dark amber, then lowered her mouth to his and kissing him with passion so completely and deeply there, on the bridge over the lake, in his prison cell, in the bed in the Cairo funeral home, he almost came, riding the sensation like a kite riding a hurricane, willing it not to crest, not to explode, wanting it never to end, pulling it under control and warns her, his wife Laura will kill her.

She responds, not her, a fragment of nonsense bubbling up from his mind in medieval days, it was said a woman on top during coitus would conceive a bishop, this what they called, trying for a bishop… He wants to know her name, but daring not ask a 3rd time, she pushing her chest against his, squeezing him somehow, down there, deep inside her and this time he couldn’t ride or surf it, it picked him up, and spun and tumbled him away, and he was arching up, pushing into her as deeply as he could imagine, as if they were, in some way, part of the same creature, tasting, drinking, holding, wanting… She says, let it happen, her voice a throaty feline growl. Give it to her. Let it happen, and he came, spasming and dissolving, the back of his mind itself liquefying then sublimating slowly from one state to the next.

Somewhere in there, at the end of it, he took a breath, a clear drought of air he felt all the way down to the depth of his lungs, and he knew he’d been holding his breath for a long time now, 3 years at least, perhaps longer. She then says, now rest, and kissed his eyelids, let it go. Let it all go. The sleep he had after this, deep, dreamless, and comforting, Shadow diving deep and embracing it.

The light was strange, when he checks his watch seeing it’s 6:45 a.m., and still dark outside, but the room filled with pale blue dimness, he climbing out of bed, certain he’d been wearing pjs, but was now naked, the air cold on his skin, he closing the window. There’d been a snowstorm, 6 inches falling, perhaps more. The corner of town Shadow could see from his window, dirty and rundown, had been transformed into somewhere clean and different, these houses not abandoned and forgotten, now frosted into elegance, the streets lost completely beneath the white field of snow. There was an idea hovering at the edge of his perception, something about transcendence, it flickering and was gone.

He could see as if it were full daylight, in the mirror Shadow noticing something strange, stepping closer and staring, puzzled. All his bruises had vanished, he touching his side, pressing firmly with his fingertips, feeling for one of the deep pains, which told of his encounter with Stone and Wood, and hunting for the bruises from Mad Sweeney, and finding nothing. His face was clear and unmarked, his sides though, and back (he twisting to examine it) were scratched with what looked like claw marks. He hadn’t dreamt it then, not entirely.

Shadow opens the drawers and puts on what he found, an ancient pair of blue-denim Levis, a shirt, thick blue sweater, and black undertaker’s coat he found hanging in the wardrobe at the back of the room, wondering again who the clothes belonged to, and wearing his own old shoes. The house was still asleep as he crept through it, willing the floorboards not to creak. Then he was outside, through the front door, not the mortuary door this morning, and he walks through the snow, his feet leaving deep prints in the new snow. It’s lighter out than it’d seemed from indoors, and the snow reflected the light.

After 15 minutes of walking, Shadow came to a bridge with a sign warning he was now leaving the historical Cairo. A man stood under the bridge, tall and gangling, sucking a cigarette and shivering continually. Shadow thought he recognized him, but the light on the snow was playing tricks on his eyes, and he walked closer to be certain. The man is wearing patched denim jacket and cap, then noticing the purple bruise around his eye, and says, good morning, Mad Sweeney.

The world was so quiet, not even cars disturbed the snowy silence, Sweeney replying, hey man. He didn’t look up and Shadow states if he kept hanging out under bridges, people would think he’s a troll. This time Sweeney looks up, Shadow could see the white’s of his eyes, the man looking scared, saying he’d been looking for him, he’s got to help him, he fucked up big-time. He sucks on his hand-rolled cigarette, Shadow replying, his resources were pretty much tapped out, but why not tell him what he needed, did he want him to get him a coffee?

Mad Sweeney shakes his head, took out his tobacco pouch and papers to roll himself another cigarette in silence until saying, he’s not a troll, shit, those bastard’s are fucking mean. Shadow replies gently, he knew he wasn’t a troll, hoping he didn’t sound patronizing, how could he help him? Sweeney asks if Shadow remembers he showed him how to get a coin, Shadow agreeing. Sweeney states, he’d taken the wrong coin, man, a car then approaching, and as it slowly passed, stops and rolls a window down to ask if everything’s ok there, gentlemen?

Shadow replies, everything’s just peachy, officer, just out for a morning walk, the cop responding, ok now, not seeming to believe it, and waiting. Shadow places a hand on Sweeney’s shoulder and they walk away out of town the police car cruising past them slowly, then going back to the city. Shadow then states, now why doesn’t he tell him what’s troubling him, Sweeney replies, he did it like he said, he did it all like he said, but he gave him the wrong coin, it wasn’t meant to be this coin, it’s for royalty, he should’t even have been able to take it. The coin he’d give to the King of America, not some pissant bastard like him or Sweeney, and now he’s in big trouble, just give him the coin back, man he’ll never see him again, if he does, he swearstofuckinBran, ok? He swears by the years he spent in the fucking trees.

Shadow asks, he did it like who said, Sweeney? Answering, Grimnir, the dude he called Wed, does he know who he is, really? Shadow replies, yeah, he guesses. There’s a panicked look in the Irishman’s crazy blue eyes, stating, it was nothing bad, he told him to be there at the bar to pick a fight with him, said he’d wanted to see what he was made of.

Shadow asks, did he tell him to do anything else? Sweeney shivers and twitches, Shadow at first thinking it was the cold then remembers seeing this shudder in prison, the junkie shiver. Sweeney was in withdrawal from something, he willing to bet it was heroin, a junkie leprechaun? Sweeney pinches off the burning head of the cigarette and put the unfinished yellowing rest in his pocket rubbing his hands together to warm them.

Sweeney’s voice is a whine now, listen just give him the fucking coin, man, what did he want it for, huh, hey, he knows there’s more where they’d come from, he’ll give him another just as good, hell, he’ll give him a shitload, man. He takes off his cap, then with his right hand, strokes the air, he producing a large golden coin, dropping it in his cap, then takes another from a wisp of breath steam, and another, catching and grabbing them from the still morning air, until his cap was brimming with them and forced to hold it with both hands, extending the cap filled with gold to Shadow, saying, here, take them, man just give him back the coin, he gave to him. Shadow looking down at the cap and wondering how much the contents would be worth. Shadow asks, where would he spend those coins, Mad Sweeney?

Are there a lot of places he can turn his gold into cash? Shadow thought Sweeney was going to hit him for a moment, but it passes and Sweeney just stood there holding out his gold-filled cap with both hands like Oliver Twist, then tears swelling in his blue eyes and spilling down his cheeks. He takes the now empty cap and places the greasy sweatband back over his thinning scalp saying, he’s gotta, man, didn’t he show him how to do it? He showed him how to take coins from the hoard, he showed him where the hoard was, the treasure of the sun, just give him the first coin back, it didn’t belong to him.

Shadow finally states, he didn’t have it anymore. Mad Sweeney’s tears stopped and spots of color appeared in his cheeks, he responding, but unable to finish, words failing him, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. Shadow states, he’s telling him the truth, he’s sorry, if he had it, he’d give it back to him, but he’d given it away. Sweeney’s filthy hands clamped on Shadow’s shoulders, and he stared, tears leaving streaks of dirt on his face, saying, shit.

Shadow could smell the tobacco, stale beer and whiskey-sweat, saying, he’s telling the truth, the fucker gave it away, and freely, and of his own will, damn his dark eyes, he gave it a fucking way. Shadow apologizes again, and Sweeney responds, sorry or not, he’s damned and doomed, the tears flowing again, clear snot running from his nose. His next words dissolved into syllables not congealing into words, bah-bah-bah, muh-muh-muh, he wiping his nose and eyes on his sleeves, muddying his face into strange patterns, wiping snot all over his beard and mustache. Shadow squeezes Mad Sweeney’s upper arm in an awkward male gesture of I’m here.

Sweeney states, T’were better he’d never been conceived, then looks up and asks, the fellow he gave it to, would he give it back? Shadow replies, it’s a woman, and he didn’t know where she was, but no, he didn’t believe she would. Sweeney sighs mournfully saying, when he was but a young pup, there was a woman he met, under the stars who let him play with her bubbies, and she told him his fortune, she saying he’d be undone and abandoned west of the sunrise and a dead woman’s bauble would seal his fate. He laughed and poured more barley wine, and played with her bubbies some more, and kissed her full on her pretty lips.

Those were the good days - the first of the gray monks hadn’t come to their land, nor had they ridden the green sea to westward, and now… He stops mid-sentence, head turning and focused on Shadow saying reproachfully, he shouldn’t trust him. Shadow asks, who? Sweeney replying, Wed, he mustn’t trust him, Shadow stating, he didn’t have to trust him, he worked for him.

Sweeney asks, did he remember how to do it, Shadow asking, what?, he feeling he was having a chat with half a dozen different people. The self-styled leprechaun sputtered and jumped from persona to persona and theme to theme, like the remaining clusters of brain cells were igniting, flaming and going out for good. Sweeney states, the coins man, the coins, he showed him, remember? He raises 2 fingers to his face, stared at them, then pulls a gold coin from his mouth, tossing the coin to Shadow, who stretched out a hand and caught it, but no coin reached him.

Shadow states, he was drunk, he doesn’t remember. Sweeney stumbles across a road, it light now, and the world white and gray, Shadow following as he walked in a long, loping stride, like he was always falling, but his legs were there to stop him to propel him into another stumble. When they reached the bridge, he held onto the bricks with one hand, turned and said, he got a few bucks? He didn’t need much, only enough for a ticket out of this place, $20 would do him fine, he got a 20? Just a lousy 20?

Shadow asks, where can he go on a $20 bus ticket? Sweeney replies, he can get out of here, get away before this storm hits, away from a world, which opiates have become the religion of the masses, away from, he stops, wiping his nose on the side of his hand then wiping his hand on his sleeve. Shadow reaches into his jeans and pulls out a $20, passing it to him, saying, here. Sweeney crumpled it up and put it deep in his breast pocket of his oil-stained denim jacket, a sew-on patch showing 2 vultures on a dead branch and barely illegible under them was, PATIENCE MY ASS! I’m GOING TO KILL SOMETHING!

Sweeney nodding and saying, this will get him where he needed to go. He leaned against the brick, fumbling in his pockets til finding the unfinished cigarette stub, he lights carefully to not burn his fingers or beard and says, he’ll tell him something, like he’d said nothing today, he’s walking on gallows ground, and there’s a hempen rope around his neck and a raven-bird on each shoulder, waiting for his eyes, and the gallows tree has deep roots, for it stretches from heaven to hell, and their world only the branch from which the rope’s swinging. He stops and says, he’ll rest there a spell, crouching down, back resting against the black brickwork, Shadow replying, good luck. Sweeney responds, hell, he’s fled, whatever, thanks.

Shadow walks back toward town, it 8 a.m. and Cairo waking like a tired beast, he glancing back to the bridge and seeing Sweeney’s pale face striped with tears and dirt, watching him go, this the last time Shadow saw Sweeney alive. The brief winter days leading to Xmas were like moments of light between winter darknesses and they fled fast in the funeral home. It was Dee 23rd and Jacquel and Ibis played host for a wake for Lila Goodchild, bustling women filling the kitchen with tubs and saucepans, skillets and Tupperware, the deceased laid int he casket in the front room with hothouse flowers around hers. There was a table on the other side of the room piled high with coleslaw, beans, cornmeal hush puppies, chicken and ribs, black eyed peas, and by noon the house was full with people weeping and laughing and shaking hands with the minister.

Everything was quietly organized and overseen by the sober-suited Jacquel and Ibis, the burial the next morning. When the phone in the hall rang, this a Bakelite and black with a rotary dial, Ibis answers and pulls Shadow aside in forming him it’d been the cops and could he make a pick up? Shadow replies, sure and Ibis states, be discreet, handing him the address written on some paper, Ibis adding, there’d be a police car. Shadow goes out back and gets the hearse, Jacquel and Ibis both individually explaining, the hearse should only be used for funerals, they having a van they used to collect bodies, but the van being repaired so far for 3 weeks, and to be careful with the hearse.

Shadow does so as he drove down the street. A dark blue cop cruiser was parked on a side street and Shadow pulls up behind it. There were 2 cops sitting in the car drinking coffee from thermos tops and the engine was running to keep warm as Shadow taps their window. One asks, yeah?, he replying, he’s from the funeral home, they stating, we’re waiting for the medical examiner.

One cop, who was black, gets out and leads Shadow to a Dumpster, Mad Sweeney sitting in the snow an empty green bottle in his lap, a dusting of snow and ice on his face, cap and shoulders, he not blinking. Cop says, dead wino, Shadow replying, looks like it. The cop replies not to touch anything yet, medical examiner should be there anytime now, if he asked him, the guy drank himself into a stupor and froze his ass, Shadow agreeing, certain what it looks like. Shadow squats down and looks at the bottle in Mad Sweeney’s lap, Jameson Irish whiskey, a $20 ticket out of this place.

Then a small green Nissan pulled up and a harassed middle-aged man with sandy hair and mustache gets out, walks over, touches the corpse’s neck, says, he’s dead, any ID? Cop replies, he’s a John Doe, the medical examiner looks at Shadow and asks, he working for Jacquel and Ibis? Shadow replying, yes, the man responding, tell Jacquel to get dentals and prints for ID and identity photos, they don’t need to post, he should only draw blood for toxicology, got it? Does he want him to write it down for him, Shadow saying, no it’s fine, he can remember.

The man scowls fleetingly, then pulls a business card from his wallet and scribbles on it, handing it to Shadow, saying to give this to Jacquel. Then he says to everyone, merry Xmas, and leaving, the cops keeping the empty bottle. Shadow signs for the John Doe and puts him on the gurney, the body pretty stiff, he had to leave him sitting, closing the curtains in the back before driving. Shadow’s stopped at the traffic light he’d fishtailed at several nights earlier, when he heard a voice croak, and it’s a fine wake he’ll be wanting, with the best of everything, and beautiful women shedding tears and their clothes in distress, and brave men lamenting and telling fine tales of him in his great days.

Shadow states, he’s dead, Mad Sweeney, he takes what he’s given when he’s dead. Sweeney responds, aye, this he shall, the junkie whine gone, and replaced with resigned flatness, like the words were being broadcast from a long way, dead words sent out on a dead frequency. The light turns green and Shadow drives, Sweeney saying, but give him a wake tonight, nonetheless, set him a place at table, and give him a stinking drunk wake tonight, Shadow killed him, he owed him this much. Shadow replies he never killed Mad Sweeney, thinking it was $20 for a ticket out of here, continuing aloud, it was drink and the cold killed him, not him.

No reply, and silence for the rest of the drive, after parking in the back, Shadow wheeled the gurney out of the hearse and into the mortuary, manhandling Sweeney onto the embalming table, like he was a side of beef. He covers him with a sheet and leaves him there with the paperwork beside him, and as he went back up the stairs, he thought he heard a quiet, muted voice, like a radio playing in a distant room saying, and what would drink or could be doing killing him, a leprechaun of blood? No it was him losing the little golden sun killed him, Shadow, killed him dead as sure as water’s wet and days are long and a friend will always disappoint in the end. Shadow wanted to point out to Mad Sweeney this was a kind of bitter philosophy, but suspected it was the being dead which made one bitter.

He goes upstairs to the main house, where a number of middle aged women were putting Saran wrap on casserole dishes, popping Tupperware tops onto plastic pots of cooling fried potatoes and mac and cheese. Mr. Goodchild had Ibis against a wall and telling him how he knew none of his kids would come out to pay their respects to their mother. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, he’d tell anyone who’d listen. This evening, Shadow laid an extra place at the table, putting a glass and a new bottle of Jameson Gold in the middle of the table, the most expensive whiskey sold at the liquor store, and after they ate, which was a large platter of leftovers left by the middle-aged women for them, Shadow pours a generous tot into each glass, all 4 of them, Mad Sweeney’s included.

Shadow states, so what if he’s sitting on a gurney in the cellar, as he poured, on his way to a pauper’s grave? Tonight we’ll toast him and give him the wake he wanted. Shadow raised his glass to the empty place at the table saying, he’d only met Sweeney twice, alive, the first he thinking he was a world class jerk with the devil in him, the 2nd, thinking he was a major fuckup and gave him money to kill himself. He showed him a coin trick he doesn’t remember how to do, and gave him some bruises, and claimed he was a leprechaun, RIP Mad Sweeney, he sipping the whiskey, letting the smoky taste evaporate in his mouth, the other 2 drinking and toasting the empty chair along with him.

Ibis reaches into an inside pocket and pulls out a notebook, flipping through it til finding the page, and reading a summarized version of Sweeney’s life. According to Ibis, Sweeney started life as guardian of a sacred rock in a small Irish glade over 3,000 years ago. Ibis tells them of Mad Sweeney’s love affairs, enmities (hostilities), the madness, which gave him his power (a later version of the tale still told, although the sacred nature, and the antiquity, of much of the verse has been long forgotten) the worship and adoration in his own land, which slowly transmuted into a guarded respect, then finally into amusement. Ibis tells them the story of the girl from Bantry who came into the New World and who brought her belief in Mad Sweeney the leprechaun with her, for hadn’t she seen him of a night, down by the pool, and hadn’t he smiled at her and called her by her own true name?

She’d become a refugee in the hold of a ship of people who’d watched their potatoes turn black sludge in the ground, who’d watched friends and lovers die of hunger, who dreamed of a land of full stomachs. The girl dreamed specifically of a city where a girl would be able to earn enough to bring her family over to the New World. Many of the Irish coming to America thought themselves as Catholics, even if they knew nothing about it, even if all they knew was the Bean Sidhe, the banshee, who came to wail at the walls of a house where death soon would be. Saint Bride, who was once Bridget of the 2 sisters (each of the 3 a Brigid, each was the same woman), and tales of Finn, of Oisin, of Conan the Bald - even of the leprechauns the little people (and was this not the biggest joke of the Irish, for the leprechauns in their day were tallest of the mound folk)…

All this and more Ibis shared with them, his shadow on the wall stretched and bird-like as the whiskey flowed, and somewhere in the middle of the 2nd glass Mad Sweeney started throwing both details and irrelevancies into Ibis’ narrative (like, such a girl she was, with breasts cream-colored and spackled with freckles, the tips of them the reddish pink of the sunrise on a day when it’ll be bucketing down before noon but glorious again by supper). Then Sweeney tried, with both hands, explain the history of the gods in Ireland, wave after wave of them, as they came in from Gaul and Spain, and every damn place. Each wave transforming the last gods into trolls and fairies and every damn creature until Holy Mother Church herself arrived, and every god in Ireland was transformed into a fairy or a saint or a dead king without so much as a by-your-leave. Ibis polished his gold-rimmed spectacles and explains enunciating more than usual so Shadow knows he was drunk (his words and sweat beading on his forehead in the chill house the only indications) - with forefinger wagging, explained he was an artist and his tales shouldn’t be seen as literal constructs, but as imaginative recreations, truer than the truth.

Sweeney replies, he’ll show him imaginative recreation, his fist imaginatively recreating his fucking face for starters. Jaquel bares his teeth and growls at Sweeney, like a huge dog not looking for a fight, but can always finish one by ripping out his throat and Sweeney took the message, sitting down and pouring himself another glass of whiskey. Sweeney asks Shadow if he remembered how he did his little coin trick? Shadow replies he hasn’t.

Sweeney says, if he could guess how he did it, he’ll tell him if he gets warm, Sweeney’s lips purple and blue eyes beclouded. Shadow asks, it’s not a palm, is it? Sweeney agreeing, it wasn’t. Shadow then asks, is it a gadget of some kind, something up his sleeve or elsewhere, which shoots the coins up for him to catch? Or a coin on a wire swinging in front and behind his hand?

Sweeney states, it’s not this either, then offering more whiskey for anybody. Shadow states reading a book about a way of doing the Miser’s Dream with latex covering the palm of one’s hand, making a skin-colored pouch for coins to hid behind. Sweeney responds, this is a sad wake for Great Sweeney, who flew like a bird across all of Ireland and ate watercress in his madness, to be dead and unmourned save for a bird, a dog, and an idiot, no it’s not a pouch. Shadow responds, this was pretty much it for ideas, he expecting he just took them out of nowhere, he meaning this sarcastically, but then saw the expression on Sweeney’s face, saying he does, he does take them from nowhere.

Well, not exactly nowhere, but now he’s getting the idea, taking them from the hoard. Shadow repeats the hoard, yes. Sweeney responds, he just has to hold it in his mind, and it’s his to take from, the sun’s treasure. It’s there in those moments when the world makes a rainbow, and in the moment of eclipse, and the moment of the storm, he showing Shadow how to do the thing, this time Shadow getting it.

Shadow’s head ached and pounded, and his tongue tasted and felt like flypaper, as he squinted into the glare of daylight after falling asleep at the kitchen table, fully dressed, although taking off his black tie at some point. He walks downstairs to the mortuary and is relieved and unsurprised to see Mad Sweeney still on the embalming table. Shadow pries the empty bottle of Jameson Gold from the corpse’s fingers and threw it away, he hearing someone moving about upstairs in the house. Wed was sitting at the kitchen table when Shadow went upstairs, eating leftover potato salad from a Tupperware, and plastic spoon.

He was wearing a dark gray suit, white shirt and deep gray tie, the morning sun glittering on the silver tiepin in the shape of a tree, smiling at Shadow when he saw him. He greets him, Ah, Shadow m’boy, good to see he’s up, he thought he was going to sleep forever. Shadow replies, Mad Sweeney’s dead. Wed states, so he heard, a great pity, of course it’ll come to all of them, in the end.

He tugged on an imaginary rope, somewhere on the level of his ear and jerked his neck to one side, tongue protruding, eyes bulging, as quick pantomimes go, it disturbing, and then he let go of the rope and smiled his familiar grin, asking, would he like some potato salad? Shadow replies, he wouldn’t, darting a look around the kitchen and out in to the hall, asking, does he know where Ibis and Jacquel were? Wed states, indeed he did, currently burying Mrs. Lila Goodchild, something they would probably have liked his help in doing, but he asked them not to wake him, he having a long drive ahead of him. Shadow asks, we’re leaving?

The answer, within the hour, Shadow responding, he should say goodbye, Wed stating, goodbyes are overrated, he’ll see them again, he had no doubt, before this affair is done with. For the first time since the first night, Shadow observed the small brown cat curled in the basket, she opening her incurious amber eyes and watching him go. So Shadow left the house of the dead, ice on the winter-black bushes and trees like they’d been insulated, made into dreams, the path slippery. Wed led Shadow to his Chevy Nova, parked on the road, it being cleaned recently, the Wisconsin plates removed and Minnesota plates replacing it.

Wed’s luggage was already stacked in the backseat, Wed unlocking the car with keys which were duplicates of Shadow’s currently in his own pocket. Wed announces, he’ll drive, it’ll be at least an hour before Shadow will be good for anything. They drove north, the MS on their left, Shadow seeing perched on a leafless gray tree beside the road, a huge brown and white hawk, staring down at them with mad eyes as they drove toward it, then taking wing and rising in powerful circles, in moments, out of sight. Shadow realizes it’d only been a temporary reprieve, his time at the funeral home and already starting to feel like something which happened to somebody else, a long time ago.

As they drove out of IL late this evening, Shadow asks his first question, he seeing the WELCOME TO WISCONSIN sign, saying, so who were the bunch who grabbed him in the parking lot, Mr Stone and Wood? Who were they? The lights of the car illuminated the winter landscape, Wed announcing we aren’t taking freeways, since he didn’t know whose side the freeways were on, so Shadow was using back roads, and not minding, he not even sure Wed was crazy. Wed grunts and says, just spooks, members of the opposition, black hats.

Shadow responding, he thinks they think they’re the white hats, Wed agreeing, of course they did. There’s never been a true war which wasn’t fought between to sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The truly dangerous people believing they’re doing whatever they are solely and only due to it’s without question the right thing to do, and this is what made them dangerous. Shadow asks, and him? Why is he doing what he’s doing?

Wed replies, because he wants to, then grins, so this is all right. Shadow asks, how’d he get away or did they all get away? Wed replying, we did, although it was close, if they hadn’t stopped to grab him, they might’ve taken the lot of them. It convinced several people who’d been on the fence he may not be completely crazy.

Shadow asks, so how’d he get out?, but Wed shakes his head and reminds, he doesn’t pay him to ask questions, he’s told him before. Shadow shrugs, they spending the night in a Super 8 motel. Xmas day was spent on the road driving north to east, farmland becoming pine forest, the town’s seeming to come further apart. They ate their Xmas lunch late afternoon in a hall-like family restaurant in northern central Wisconsin.

Shadow picks cheerlessly at the dry turkey, jam-sweet red lumps of cranberry sauce, tough-as-wood roasted potatoes and the violently green canned peas. From the way he attacked it, and smacked his lips Wed seemed to enjoy the food. As the meal progressed he became positively expansive, talking, joking and whenever she came close enough flirting with the waitress, a thin blonde girl who looked scarcely old enough to have dropped out out of hs. Wed asks, excuse him, m’dear, but may he trouble her for another cup of her delightful hot chocolate?, and he trusts she won’t think him too forward if he says what a mightily fetching and becoming dress this is, festive, yet classy.

The waitress wore a bright red and green skirt edged with silver glittering tinsel, she giggling, coloring and smiling happily, and went off to get Wed another mug of hot chocolate. Wed repeats, fetching, becoming, thoughtfully as he watched her go, Shadow not convinced he was talking about the dress. Wed shovels the last slice of turkey in his mouth, flicked at his beard with a napkin and pushed his plate forward saying, ah, good, looking around the family restaurant. In the background played the little drummer boy, Wed stating abruptly some things may change, people however stay the same, some grifts last forever, others swallowed soon enough by time and the world, his favorite of all no longer in practice, still a surprising number timeless - the Spanish prisoner, the Pigeon Drop, the Fawney Rig (the Pigeon’s Drop, with a gold ring instead of wallet), the Fiddle Game…

Shadow replies, he’d never heard of the last one, he thinks he’s heard of the other’s, his old ally saying he’d actually done the Spanish Prisoner, he was a grifter. Wed’s left eye sparkled as he says, ah, the Fiddle Game was a fine and wonderful con, it it’s purest form a 2-man grift, trading on cupidity and greed as all great grifts do one could always cheat an honest man, but it took more work. So, they’re in a hotel or an inn or fine restaurant and dining there, they find a man, shabby, but shabby genteel, not down-at-heel, but certainly down on his luck. We shall call him Abraham, and when the time comes to settle his bill - not a huge bill, 50, 75 bucks - an embarrassment, where’s his wallet?

Good Lord, he must’ve left it at a friend’s, not far away, he’ll go and obtain his wallet forthwith, but here, mine host, says Abe, take this old fiddle of his for security, it’s old as he can see, but it’s how he makes a living. Wed smiles when he saw the waitress approaching was huge and predatory (this makes sense now) saying, ah, the hot chocolate! Brought to e by my Xmas Angel! Tell him, m’dear, could he have some more of her delicious bread when she has a moment?

The waitress, Shadow wondering if she was 16, 17?, looks at the floor, her cheeks flushed crimson. She put down the chocolate shaking hands, and retreated to the edge of the room, by the slowly rotating display of pies, where she stopped and stared at Wed, then slips into the kitchen to fetch the bread. Wed continues, so the violin, old unquestionably, perhaps even a little battered, is placed in its case and their temporarily penniless Abe sets off in search of his wallet, but a well-dressed gentleman, only just done with his own dinner, has observed this exchange and now approaches the host. Could he perchance, inspect the violin honest Abraham left behind?

Certainly he could, our host hands it over and the well-dressed man, we’ll call him Barrington, opens his mouth wide, then remembers himself, and closes it, examining the violin reverentially like a man who has been permitted into a holy sanctum to examine bones of a prophet. He asks, why, this must be, no, it can’t be, but yes, there it was, but this is unbelievable, and he points to the maker’s mark on a strip of browning paper inside the violin, but still, he says, even without it he’d have known it by the color of varnish, by the scroll and shape. Barrington reaches in his pocket and produces an engraved business card, proclaiming he is a preeminent dealer in rare and antique musical instruments. Mine host asks, so this violin is rare?

Barrington responds, indeed it was, still admiring with awe, continuing, and worth in excess $100 thousand, unless he missed his guess, and even as a dealer, he’d pay $50, no, $75k, good cash money for such an exquisite piece. He had a man on the west coast who would buy it tomorrow, sight unseen, with 1 telegram, and pay whatever he asked for it. Then he consults his watch and his face falls, his train, he starts, he scarcely has time to catch his train! Good sir, when the owner of this inestimable instrument should return, please give him his card, for alas, he must be away, and with this Barrington exits, a man who knew time and the train wait for no man.

Mine host examines the violin, curiosity mingling with cupidity (greed) in his veins, and a plan starts bubbling up through his mind, but the minutes go by and Abe doesn’t return, and now its late, and through the door, shabby, but proud comes our Abe, our fiddle-player, and he holds in his hands a wallet, which has seen better days. One never containing more than $100 on its best day, and from it he takes the money to pay for his meal or stay, and asks for the return of his violin. Mine host puts the fiddle in its case on the counter and Abe takes it like a mother cradling her child. The host asks, tell him (the business card burning inside his breast pocket), how much is a violin like this worth, his niece had a yearning on her to play the fiddle, and it’s her birthday coming up in a week or so.

Abe asks, sell this fiddle? He could never sell her, he’s had her 20 years, fiddled all over the country with her, and tell the truth, she cost him all of $500 back when he’d bought her. Mine host keeps the smile from his face and says, $500? What if he offered him a thousand for it here and now? The fiddle player looks delighted, then crestfallen and says, but lordy, he’s a fiddle player sir, it’s all he knew how to do.

This fiddle knew him and loved him, his fingers knew her so well, he could play an air upon her in the dark, where would he find another which sounds so fine? A grand is good money, but this was his livelihood, not a grand, not for $5k. Mine host sees his profit shrinking, but this is business and one must spend to make money. He counters with 8k, it not worth this, but he’s taken a fancy to it, and he did love and indulges his niece.

Abe is almost in tears at the thought of losing his beloved fiddle, but how could he say no to 8k? - especially when mine host goes to the wall safe and removes not 8k but 8, all neatly banded and ready to be slipped into the fiddle player’s threadbare pocket. Abe says to the host, he’s a good man, a saint, but he must swear to take care of his girl!, and reluctantly hands over his violin. Shadow asks, but what if mine host simply handed over Barrington’s card and told Ave he’s come into good fortune? Wed replies, then we’re out the cost of 2 dinners, he wiping the remaining gravy and leftovers from his plate with a slice of bread, which he ate with lip-smacking relish.

Shadow states, let’s see if he’s got this straight, Abe leaves 9k the richer, and in the parking lot by the train station he and Barrington meet up, split the money, get into Barrington’s Model A Ford and head for the next town. He guesses in the trunk of the car they must have a box filled with $100 violins. Wed replies, he personally made it a point of honor to never pay more than $5 for any of them, then he turns to the hovering waitress saying, now, my dear, regale them with her description of the sumptuous desserts available to them on this, our Lord’s natal day. He stares at her, almost a leer, as if nothing she could offer him would be as toothsome a morsel as herself.

Shadow felt deeply uncomfortable, this like watching an old wolf stalking a fawn too young to know if it didn’t run, and now, it’d wind up in a distant glade with its bones picked clean by the ravens. The girl blushes once more and tells them dessert was apple pie, a la mode - with the scoop vanilla ice cream, Xmas cake also a la mode option, or red and green whipped pudding. Wed stared into her eyes and told her he’d try the Xmas cake a la mode, Shadow passing. Wed states, now, as grifts go, the Fiddle Game goes back 300 years or more, and if one picks their chicken correctly, one could play it still tomorrow anywhere in America.

Shadow replies, he thought he said his favorite grift wasn’t any longer practical, Wed agreeing, indeed he had, this isn’t his favorite, it’s fine and enjoyable, but not his favorite. No, his favorite was one they called the Bishop Game. It had everything, excitement, subterfuge, portability, surprise. He considers perhaps with modifying it could… trailing off and saying, no, it’s time passed, lets say it’s 1920 in a medium to large size city, perhaps Chicago, NY, or Philly.

They’re in a jeweler’s emporium, a man dressed as a bishop, in his purple, entering and picking out a necklace, a glorious and gorgeous confection of diamonds and pearls, and pays with the crispest hundreds. There’s a smudge of green ink on the topmost bill, and the store owner apologizes but firmly sends the bills to the bank on the corner to be checked. Soon enough the store clerk returns to say the bank found no counterfeit, the owner apologizing and the bishop most gracious, he understanding there being lawless and ungodly types in the world today, such immorality and lewdness abroad in the world - shameless women, and now the underworld having crawled out of the gutter and come to live on the screens of the picture palaces, what more could anyone expect?, and the necklace is placed in its case. The store owner does his best not to ponder why a bishop of the church would be buying a $1200 diamond necklace, nor why he’d be paying good cash money for it.

The bishop bids him a hearty farewell and walks out to the street, only for a heavy hand to descend on his shoulder and say, why Soapy, yez spalpeen, up to his old tricks is he?, and a broad beat cop with an honest Irish face walks the bishop back into the jewelry store. The cop asks, beggin’ pardon, but has this man bought anything from him? The bishop replies, certainly not, tell him he hasn’t. The jeweler replies, he indeed has, he bought a pearly and diamond necklace from him, and paid cash as well. The cop asks, would he have the bills available?

So the jeweler takes the $1200 from the register and hands them to the cop, who holds them to the light, and shakes his head in wonder saying, Oh Soapy, Soapy, these are the finest he’s made yet! He’s a craftsman, this he is! A self-satisfied smile spreads over the bishop’s face, saying, he couldn’t prove nothing and the bank said they’re on the level, the real green stuff. The cop agrees, he’s sure they did, but doubts the banks had been warned Soapy Sylvester is in town, nor the quality of $100 bills he’d been passing in Denver and St. Louis, and with this, reaching into the bishops pocket and pulling the necklace out.

The cop says $1200’s worth of diamonds and pearls in exchange for 50 cents worth of paper and ink, he obviously a philosopher at heart continuing, and passing himself off as a man of the church, he should be ashamed, clapping handcuffs on the bishop, who is obviously not a bishop and marches him away, but not before he gives the jeweler a receipt for both necklace and $1200 counterfeit bills, it evidence, after all. Shadow asks, was it really counterfeit? Wed replies, of course not! Fresh bank notes straight from the bank, only with a thumbprint and a smudge of green ink on a couple of them to make them more interesting.

Shadow sips his coffee, it was worse than prison coffee, and asks, so the cop was obviously no cop, and the necklace? Wed replies, evidence, he unscrewing the top from the salt-shaker, poured a heap on the table and continues, but the jeweler gets a receipt, and assurance he’ll get the necklace straight back as soon as Soapy goes to trial, he congratulated on being a good citizen and watches proudly, already thinking of the tale he’ll have to tell at the next meeting of the Oddfellow tomorrow night, as the cop marches the man pretending to be a bishop out of the store, $1200 in one pocket, the necklace in the other, going to a police station which won’t see hide nor hair of either of them ever. The waitress returns to clear the table, and Wed asks, tell him dear, is she married? She shakes her head, he continuing, astonishing a young lady of such loveliness hasn’t yet been snapped up.

He doodled a finger with his fingernail in the spilled salt, making squat, blocky rune-like shapes. The waitress stood passively by him, reminding Shadow less of a fawn and more like a young rabbit caught in an 18 wheeler’s headlights, frozen in fear and indecision. Wed lowered his voice, so much Shadow across the table could barely hear him ask, what time does she get off work? She answers 9, swallowed then, 9:30 latest.

Wed asks, what’s the finest motel in this area? She replies, there’s a motel 6, it’s not much. Wed touches the book of her hand fleetingly, with the tips of his fingers, leaving crumbs of salt on her skin, she making no attempt to wipe them off. Wed states, to them, his voice an almost inaudible rumble, it shall be a pleasure-palace.

The waitress looks at him, but her thin lips, hesitates, then nods and flees for the kitchen. Shadow comments, c’mon, she looks barely legal, Wed replying, he’s never been overly concerned with legality, not as long as he got what he wanted, sometime the nights are long and cold, and he needs her not as an end in herself, but to wake him up a little. Even King David knew there’s one easy prescription to get warm blood flowing through an old frame: take one virgin, call him in the morning. Shadow catches himself wondering if the girl on night duty in the hotel back in Eagle Point had been a virgin, then asks, doesn’t he ever worry about disease, what if he knocked her up, what if she has a brother?

Wed replies, No, he doesn’t worry about diseases, he doesn’t catch them, people like him avoid them. Unfortunately for the most part people like him fire blanks, so there’s not a great deal of interbreeding. It used to happen in the old days, nowadays it’s possible, but so unlikely as to be almost unimaginable, so no worries there, and many girls have brothers and fathers some even husbands, it’s not his problem, 99 times out of 100, he’s already left town. Shadow asks, so we’re staying here for the night?

Wed responds, rubbing his chin, he’ll stay in the Motel 6, then reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a front-door key, bronze color with a card tag attached which an address was typed, continuing, he on the other hand has an apartment waiting for him in a city far from there. Wed closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them, gray, gleaming, and fractionally mismatched, saying, the greyhound bus will be coming through town in 20 minutes it stops at the gas station, here’s his ticket, pulling out a folded bus ticket, and passing it across the table. Shadow picks it up and looks at it, asking, who’s Mike Ainsel?, the name on the ticket. Wed answers, he was, happy Xmas, Shadow then asking, where’s Lakeside?

Wed replies, his happy home in the months to come, and now, since good things come in 3s, he takes a small gift-wrapped package form his pocket, pushing it across the table. It sat beside the ketchup bottle with black smears of dried ketchup on the top, Shadow not making a move to take it. Wed asks, well? Shadow reluctantly tears it open the red wrapping to reveal a fawn-color calfskin wallet, shiny from use, it obviously someone’s wallet.

Inside was a driver license with Shadow’s photo, the name Michael Ainsel, and a Milwaukee address, a MC for M. Ainsel and 20 crips 50 dollar bills. Shadow closes the wallet and puts into an inside pocket saying, thanks. Wed replies, think of it as a Xmas bonus, now, let him walk him down to the Greyhound, he’ll wave to him as he rides the grey dog north. They walk outside the restaurant, Shadow finding it hard to believe how much colder it’d gotten in the last few hours.

It felt too cold to snow now, aggressively cold, this a bad winter. Shadow then says, hey, Wed. Both scams he mentioned, the violin and bishop one’s hesitating and trying to form his thought into focus, Wed asking, what of them? Shadow then has it and states, they’re both 2-man scams, did he used to have a partner?

His breath coming out in clouds, he promising himself when he got to Lakeside, he’d spend some money of his Xmas bonus on the warmest, thickest winter coat money could buy. Wed replies, yes, he had a partner, a junior partner, but alas, those days are gone. There’s the gas station, and there, unless his eye deceives him, is the bus, it signaling its turn into a parking lot. Wed states, his address is on the key, and if anyone asks, he’s his uncle, and he’ll be rejoicing in the unlikely name of Emerson Borson.

Settle in, in Lakeside, nephew Ainsel, he’ll come for him within the week. We’ll be traveling together, visiting people he had to visit and in the meantime, keep his head down and stay out of trouble. Shadow asks, his car? Wed replies, he’ll take good care of it, have a good time in Lakeside, he thrusting a handout, and Shadow shaking it, Wed’s hand colder than a corpse’s.

Shadow comments, Jesus, he’s cold, Wed responding, then the sooner he’s making the 2-backed beast with the little hotsy-totsy lass from the restaurant in a back room of the Motel 6 the better, he reaching out his other hand and squeezing Shadow’s shoulder. Shadow explained a dizzying moment of double vision, he seeing the grizzled man facing him, squeezing his shoulder, but saw something else: so many winters, hundreds and hundreds of winter, and a gray man in a broad-brimmed hat, walking from settlement to settlement, leaving on his staff, staring in through windows at the firelight, and joy and burning life he’d never be able to town or feel. Wed says in a reassuring growl, go, all is well and all is well, and all shall be well. Shadow shows his ticket to the driver, she saying, hell of a day to be traveling, then adds with a certain grim satisfaction, merry Xmas.

The bus is almost empty, he asks when will we get to Lakeside? The driver replies, 2 hours, maybe a bit more, they say there’s a cold snap coming. Shadow walks halfway down the bus, puts the seat back as far as it’d allow and starts to think, the motion of the bus and the warmth lull him and before being aware he was becoming, sleepy, he’s asleep. In the earth and under the earth, the marks on the wall are the red of wet clay, hand prints, finger-marks, and here and there, crude representations of animals and people and birds.

The fire still burned and the buffalo man still sat on the other side of the fire, staring at Shadow with huge eyes, like pools of dark mud. The buffalo lips, fringed with matted brown hair, didn’t move as the buffalo voice said, well Shadow? Does he believe yet? Shadow replies, he doesn’t know, his mouth not moving either he observed, so whatever words were passing between them wasn’t spoken, not anyway Shadow understood speech, asking, is he real?

The buffalo man says, believe. Shadow hesitates, is he a god too? The buffalo man reaches one hand into the flames of the fire and he pulls out a burning brand, holding the brand in the middle, blue and yellow flames, licking his red hand, but they didn’t burn. The buffalo man states, this isn’t a land for gods, but it wasn’t the buffalo man talking anymore, Shadow knew, in his dream: it was the fire speaking, the crackling and the burning of the flame itself which spoke to Shadow in the dark place under the earth.

This land was brought up from the depths of the ocean by a diver, the fire said, continuing, it was spun from its own substance by a spider. It was shat by a raven, it’s the body of a fallen father, whose bones are mountains, whose eyes are lakes. This is a land of dreams and fire. The buffalo man puts the brand back on the fire.

Shadow asks why was he telling him this stuff? He’s not important, not anything, he was an ok physical trainer, a really lousy, small time crook, and maybe not so good a husband as he thought he was, he trailing off. Shadow asks, how does he help Laura? She wants to be alive again, he said he’d help her and owes her this. The buffalo man says nothing, pointing up with his soot-blackened palm facing Shadow, index finger pointing toward the roof of the cave, Shadow’s eyes following, a thin wintry light coming from a tiny opening above.

Shadow asks, up there? Wishing one of his questions would be answered, and continues, he’s supposed to go up there? The dream then takes him, the idea becoming the thing itself, and Shadow was crushed into the rock and earth, like a mole trying to push through the earth, or badger, climbing through the earth or ground hog, pushing the earth out of his way, like a bear, but the earth too hard, too dense. His breath comes in gasps, and soon could go no further, dig and climb no more, and he knew then he would die, somewhere in the deep place beneath the world.

His own strength wasn’t enough, his efforts becoming weaker, he knowing his body was riding in a hot bus through cold woods if he stopped breathing here, beneath the world, he’d stop breathing there as well, even now his breath coming in shallow panting gasps. He struggled and pushed ever more weakly each moment using precious air. He was trapped, could go no further and couldn’t return the way he’d come. A voice then says in his mind, now bargain, it might’ve been his own voice, he couldn’t tell.

Shadow asks, what does he have to bargain with? He has nothing. He can taste the clay now, thick and mud-gritty in his mouth, he could taste the sharp mineral tang of the rocks, which surrounded him, then Shadow says, except himself, he has himself, doesn’t he? It seemed as if everything was holding its breath - not only Shadow, but the whole world under the earth, every worm, every crevice, caver, holding its breath.

He says, he offers himself, the response immediately the rocks and earth surrounding him, start pushing down on Shadow, squeezing him so hard the last ounce of air in his lungs are crushed out of him. The pressure becomes pain, pushing him on every side, and he felt he was being mashed, a fern becoming coal. He reached the zenith of pain and hung there, cresting, knowing he could take no more, no one could take more than this, and at this moment the spasm eased and Shadow could breathe again, the light above him having grown larger. He was being pushed toward the surface and as the next earth-spasm hit, Shadow tries to ride with it.

This time feeling himself being pushed upward, the pressure of the earth pushing him out, expelling him, pushing him closer to the light, and then a moment for a breath. The spasms took and rocked him, each harder more painful than the one before it. He rolled and writhed through the earth, and now his face was pushed against, the opening a gap in the rock scarcely larger than the span of his hand, through which a muted gray light came, and air, blessed air. The pain on the last awful contraction was impossible to believe as he felt himself being squeezed, crushed, and pushed through the unyielding rock gap, his bones shattering, flesh becoming something shapeless, and snake-like, and as his mouth and ruined head cleared the hole, he started to scream in fear and pain.

As he screamed he wonders whether back in the waking world, he was also screaming in his sleep on the darkened bus, and as the final spasm ended, Shadow was on the ground, his fingers clutching red earth, grateful only the pain was over and he could breathe again deep lungfuls of warm evening air. He pulls himself into a sitting position, wipes the earth from his face with his hand and looks up at the sky. It was a long purple twilight, and the stars were coming out, one by one, much brighter and more vivid than he’d ever seen or imagined. The crackling voice of the flame coming from behind him says, soon they’ll fall and the star people will meet the earth people.

There be heroes among them, and men who’ll slay monsters and bring knowledge (no women? like in indigenous oral histories?), but none of them will be gods, this a poor place for gods. A blast of air, shocking in its coldness, touched his face, like being doused in ice water. He could hear the driver saying they were in Pinewood, anyone needing a cigarette or to stretch their legs, they’ll be stopping for 10 minutes, then back on the road. Shadow stumbles off the bus, they parked in a rural gas station, almost identical to the one they’d left.

The driver was helping a couple teen girls onto the bus, putting suitcases in the luggage compartment. The driver says, hey, to Shadow when she sees him, asking, he’s getting off at Lakeside, right? He agrees sleepily, the bus driver stating, heck, it’s a good town, she thinks sometime if she were going to pack it all in, she’d move there, prettiest town she’d ever seen. Has he lived there long?

Shadow replies, his first visit, the driver replying, he have a pasty at Mabel’s for her, does he hear? Shadow decides not to ask for clarification and instead asks, tell him, was he talking in his sleep? Her response, if he was, she hadn’t heard him, she looks at her watch and says, back on the bus, she’ll call him when we get to Lakeside. The 2 teen girls, he doubting either was more than 14 were now seated in front of him.

Shadow decides they were friends, eavesdropping without meaning to, one of them knowing almost nothing about sex, but a lot about animals, helped or spent a lot of time at some kind of animal shelter, whilst the other wasn’t interested in animals, but armed with a hundred tidbits gleaned from the internet and daytime TV, and thought she knew a great deal about human sexuality. Shadow listens with horrified fascination to the one who thought she was wise in the ways of the world and detail the precise mechanics of using Alka-Seltzer tablets to enhance oral sex. He listens to both of them, one who liked animals, and the other knowing why Alka-Seltzer gives more oral bang for one’s buck than, like Altoids. Dishing dirt on the current Miss Lakeside, who had, like everybody knew only gotten her greasy hands on the coronet and sash by flirtin’ up to the judges.

Shadow starts tuning them out blanking everything, but the noise of the road and only hearing fragments of chat coming back now and again. Quotes of scattered chatter, only one perverted with, ‘You can write your name with your tongue on the side of his thing‘, then the brakes of the bus hissing and the driver shouting, Lakeside!, and the doors clunk open. Shadow follows the girls out onto the floodlit parking lot of a video store and tanning salon, which functioned, Shadow guessed, as Lakeside’s Greyhound Station. The air’s dreadfully cold, but it was a fresh cold, waking him up.

He stares at the lights of the town to the south and west, the pale expanse of a frozen lake to the east. The girls stood in the lot, stamping and blowing on their hands dramatically, the younger of the 2 sneaking a look at Shadow, and smiled awkwardly when she realized he’d seen her do so. Shadow says, merry Xmas, seeming like a safe thing to say, the other girl, maybe a year or so older than the first replies, yeah, merry Xmas to him too. She had carroty red hair and a snub nose covered with 100 thousand freckles.

Shadow comments, nice town they got here, the younger one commenting, we like it, the one who liked animals giving Shadow a shy grin and revealing blue rubber-band braces stretching over her front-teeth. She says gravely, he looks like somebody, is he someone’s brother or son or something? Her friend states, she’s such a spaz, Alison, everybody’s somebody’s one of those or something. Alison states this wasn’t what she meant.

Headlights framed them for a brilliant white moment, a station wagon with a mother in it, and in moments, the girls and their bags left Shadow standing alone in the parking lot. An old man locking up the video store asks, young man? Anything he can do for him? He pockets the keys and cheerfully says, store ain’t open Xmas, but he comes down to meet the bus, make sure everything’s ok, couldn’t live with himself if some poor soul found themselves stranded Xmas day.

Shadow could see his face, since he was close enough, old but contented, the face of a man who’d sipped life’s vinegar and found it, by and large, to be mostly whiskey, and the good stuff to boot. Shadow replies, well, could he give him the number of the local taxi company? The old man states doubtfully, he could, but Tom’ll be in his bed this time of night, and even if he could rouse him, he’ll get no satisfaction. He saw him down at the Buck Stops Here earlier this evening, and he was very merry, indeed; where was he aiming to go?

Shadow shows him the address tag on the door key and the man says well, it’s a 10 - mebbe 20 minute walk over the bridge and around, but it’s no fun when it’s this cold, and when one doesn’t know where they’re going it always seems longer, he ever notice this? First time takes forever, and then ever after it’s over in a flash? Shadow replies, yes, he’s never thought of it like this, but he guesses it’s true. The old man nods, face cracking into a grin, saying, whattheheck, it’s Xmas, he’ll run him over there in Tessie.

Shadow asking, Tessie?, then says, he means thank you, the man replying he’s welcome. Shadow follows the old man to the road where a huge, old roadster is parked. It looked like something gangsters might’ve been proud, to drive in the Roaring Twenties, running boards and all, it a deep dark color under the sodium lights which might’ve been red or green. The old man introduces, this is Tessie, ain’t she a beaut?, patting her proprietorially.

Shadow asks, what make is she? The old man states, she’s a Wendt Phoenix, Wendt going under in ‘31 and the name bought by Chrysler, but they didn’t make anymore. Harvey Wendt founded the company, a local boy, who went out to Cali, killed himself in, oh, 1941 or ‘42, great tragedy. The car smelled of leather and old cigarette smoke, not a fresh smell, but enough people having smoked in the car over the years, the smell of burning tobacco becoming part of the fabric of the car.

The old man starts, Tessie, and says, tomorrow she goes in the garage, he’ll cover her with a dust sheet and she’ll remain there til spring. Truth was, he shouldn’t be driving her now, with snow on the ground. Shadow asks, doesn’t she ride well in snow? The reply, rides just fine, it’s the salt they put on the roads to melt the snow.

Rust’s these old beauties faster than he’d believe. Does he want to go door to door, or would he like the moonlight grand tour of the town? Shadow responds, he didn’t want to trouble him - the man cutting him off and saying, it’s no trouble, one gets to be his age, one’s grateful for the least wink of sleep he’s lucky he gets 5 hours a night nowadays, wakes with his mind turning. Where are his manners, his name’s Hinzelmann, he’d say call him Richie, but folks there who knew him just call him plain, Hinzelmann.

He’d shake his hand, but he needed both to drive Tessie, she knows when he’s not paying attention. Shadow introduces himself as Mike Ainsel, pleased to meet him, Hinzelmann. Hinz says, so we’ll go round the lake, grand tour. Main St, which we’re on, was pretty even at night, looking old fashioned, like for a hundred years, people had cared for the street, and they hadn’t been in a hurry to lose anything they liked.

Hinz points out the town’s 2 restaurants as they pass, one German, and he described as Greek, Norwegian, a bit of everything, and a popover at every plate. He points out the bakery, and bookstore, what he says a town isn’t a town without a bookstore, it may call itself a town, but it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul. He slows Tessie as they pass the library so Shadow could get a good look at it. Antique gaslights flickered over the doorway, Hinz proudly calling Shadow’s attention to them, saying, built in the 1870s by John Henning, local lumber baron, wanting the library to be named after himself, but when he died they calling it Lakeside Library, isn’t it a dream?

He couldn’t be prouder of it if he’d built it himself. The building reminded Shadow of a castle, he mentioning this and Hinz agreeing, turrets and all. Henning wanted this look for the exterior, the inside having all the original pine shelving, but one person mentioned from the town wants to tear the inside’s out and modernize, but it’s on the register for historic places and there isn’t a damn thing she can do. They drove around the south side of the lake, the town surrounding it which was a 30 foot drop below the road.

Shadow saw the patches of white ice dulling the surface of the lake here and there, a shiny patch of water reflecting the lights of the town. When Shadow mentions it looked like it was freezing over, Hinz replies, it’s been frozen for a month now, the white spots were snowdrifts and the shiny spots ice, it freezing after Thanksgiving in one cold night. Does he do much ice fishing, Mr. Ainsel? Shadow replies, never, Hinz stating, best thing a man could do, not about the fish one catches, it’s the peace of mind one takes home at the end of the day.

Shadow responds, he’ll remember this, as he looks through Tessie’s window, then asking, can he really walk on it already? Hinz states, he could walk and drive on it too, but wouldn’t want to risk it yet, it cold up there for 6 weeks, but also has to allow things freeze, harder and faster up there in northern Wisconsin than most anyplace else there was. He was out hunting once for deer, 30-40 years back and shot a buck, missed and sent him running through the woods, this up where (Shadow) will be living, Mike. Now this was the finest buck he ever did see, 20 point, big as a small horse, no lie.

He was younger and feistier back then and this Thanksgiving had a clean snow on the ground, and he saw the buck’s footprints, big fellow looking to him like he was heading for the lake in a panic. Well, only a damn fool tries to run down a buck, but there he was running after him, and sees him standing in the lake 8 or 9 inches of water and looking at him. this moment the sun goes behind a cloud and the freeze comes, temperature must’ve fallen 30 degrees in 10 minutes, not a word of a lie, and the old stag gets ready to run and he can’t move, frozen to the ice. He walks over to him slowly and he could see he wants to run, but he’s iced in, and it wasn’t going to happen, but there was no way he could bring himself to shoot a defenseless critter when he couldn’t get away, what kind of man would he be if he did this, heh?

So he takes his shotgun, he fires one shell up in the air, well the noise and shock was enough to make the buck just about jump out of his skin and seein’ his legs are iced in, it’s just what he does. He leaves his hide and antlers stuck to the ice while he charges back into the woods, pink as a newborn mouse and shivering fit to bust. He felt bad enough for the old buck he talked the Lakeside Ladies Knitting Circle into making him something warm to wear all the winter, they knitting an all-over one piece, woolen suit, so he wouldn’t freeze to death. Course the joke was on us, since they knitted him a suit of bright orange wool so no hunter ever shot at it, hunter’s wearing orange at hunting season, and if he thought there’s a word of a lie in this, he can prove it to him.

Still has the antlers up on his rec room wall to this day. Shadow laughs and the old man smiles the satisfied smile of a master craftsman. They pull up outside a brick building with large wooden deck, which golden holiday lights hung and twinkled invitingly, Hinz saying this is five-oh-two, apt 3 would be on the top floor around the other side, over-looking the lake, there he goes, Mike. Shadow replies, thank you, Mr Hinz, could he give him anything toward gas?

Hinz replies, just Hinz, and he doesn’t owe him a penny, merry Xmas from him and Tessie. Shadow asks, is he sure he won’t accept anything? The old man scratches his chin and says, tell him what, sometime next week or so he’ll come by and sell him some tickets for their raffle, charity, for now, young man, he can be getting on to bed. Shadow smiles and says merry Xmas, Hinz, the old man shaking Shadow’s hand with one red-knuckled hand, it feeling as hard and calloused as an oak branch.

Hinz states, how he should watch the path as he goes up there, it’s going to be slippery. He can see his door from there, at the side there, see it? He’ll wait in the car down here til he’s safely inside, he can give him a thumbs-up when he’s in ok, and he’ll drive off. He kept Tessie idling til Shadow was safely up the wooden steps on the side of the house and opened the apt door with his key, the door swinging open.

Shadow makes a thumbs up and the old man swing around as he smiled at the thought of a car with a name and making their way back across the bridge. Shadow shuts the door, the room freezing, it smelling of people who’s gone away to live other lives, and of all they had eaten and dreamed. He first cranked up the thermostat to 70, then goes to the tiny kitchen, checked the drawers, opened the avocado-color fridge, but it was empty, no surprise there, at least it smelled clean inside, not musty. There was a small bedroom with a bare mattress, beside the kitchen, next to a tinier bathroom which was mostly shower, an aged cigarette butt floating in the toilet bowl, staining the water brown, Shadow flushing it.

He found sheets and blankets in a closet and made the bed, taking his shoes, jacket, and watch off, and climbing into the bed fully clothed, wondering how long it’d take him to get warm. The lights were off and there was silence mostly, nothing but the hum of the fridge, and somewhere in the building a radio playing. He lay there in the darkness, wondering if he’d slept himself out on the bus, if the hunger and the cold and new bed and craziness of the last few weeks would combine to keep him awake tonight. In the stillness he heard something snap like a shot.

Shadow thinks a branch or the ice, it was freezing out there, then wondering how long he’d have to wait until Wed came for him, a day, week? However long, he knew he had to focus on something in the meantime, he’d start to work out again, he decides, and practice his coin sleights and palms until he was smooth as anything. Practice all his tricks, somebody whispers inside his head, in a voice not his own, all of them but one, not poor dead Mad Sweeney’s trick, not this trick, oh not this one. This was a good town, he could feel it, he thought of his dream, if it had been, his first night in Cairo.

He thought of Zorya, what the hell was her name? The midnight sister, then he thinks of Laura… It was like thinking of her opened a window in his mind, he seeing her, somehow, in Eagle Point, in the backyard outside her mother’s house. She stands in the cold, which she doesn’t feel anymore, or she felt all the time; standing at the house her mother bought in ‘89 with insurance money her father had passed on from a heart attack while straining on the can.

She was staring in her cold hands against the glass, breath not fogging it, watching her mother, sister, and sis’ hubby and children in from TX, home for Xmas. Out in the darkness was where Laura was, unable not to look. Tears prickled in Shadow’s eyes and he rolled over in his bed. Shadow next thinks, Wed, and with the thought, a window opened and he was watching from a corner of the room in the Motel 6, watching the 2 figures thrusting and rolling in the semi-darkness.

He felt like a Peeping Tom (cuz he is, no sense of the girl’s shy persona here, being how she was, strange indeed just needing to show, it seems Wed gets what he wants with his little salt rune), and turns his thoughts away, willed them to come back to him (what does this mean; changed his mind so quickly?). He could imagine huge black wings pounding through the night toward him. Shadow’s breath came shallowly now, no longer cold as the wind blowing down from the Arctic, breathed the cold on the land, forcing any remaining liquid to become solid, prying jack-frost fingers a hundred times colder than the fingers of any corpse. Shadow could hear a wind rising, a bitter screaming around the house, and for a moment thought he could hear words on the wind. If he was going to be anywhere, he thinks he may as well be here, then sleeps.

Meanwhile, a conversation. Dingdong. Miz Crow? Yes. You’re Samantha Black Crow? Yes. 2 Men have come to ask Sam a few questions and ask if she minded, she replying she did, actually. The one says there’s no reason to take this attitude, ma’am.

She asks if they’re cops and what they are, he replying, his name is Town and his colleague, Mr. Road are investigating the disappearance of 2 associates. She asks what their names were, he acting like he didn’t hear her, so she states, tell her their names, she wants to know what they were called, tell her their names and maybe she’ll help them. He agrees and says, we are Wood and Stone, now could we ask her questions?

She answers, did they look at things and pick names, oh, he should be Mr Sidewalk, he’s Mr Carpet, say hello to Mr Airplane? The man replies, very funny, young lady, first question was we needed to know if she’d seen this man in the photo, she can hold it, she commenting, whoa, straight on and profile with numbers at the bottom, and he’s big and cute, what’d he do? He replies, he’s mixed up in a small-town bank robbery, as a driver some years ago, his to colleagues deciding to keep the loot for themselves and ran out on him, he getting mad, finds them and nearly kills them with his hands. The state cut a deal with the men he hurt, they testifying and getting a suspended sentence, and Shadow gets 6 years, serves 3.

If it were up to Town, they should lock guys like him up and throw away the key. Sam responds, she’d never heard anyone say this out loud in real life before, he asking, what? She replies, loot, hearing it in movies maybe, but not for real. Town replies this isn’t a movie, Miz Crow, she corrects Black Crow, her friends call her Sam, he replying, got it, Sam, now about this man - she interrupting, but they weren’t her friends, they can call her Miz Black Crow.

Road loses his temper and says, listen, snot-nosed little - being next interrupted by Town, who says, it’s ok, Road, Sam pardon, ma’am, Miz Black Crow wanted to help them, she’s a law abiding citizen. They knew she helped Shadow, she’d been seen with him in a white Chevy Nova, he giving her a ride and bought her dinner, did he say anything, which could help their investigation? 2 of their best men have vanished. She replies she’d never met him, he stating, she’d met him, please don’t make the mistake of thinking we’re stupid, we weren’t.

She replies, mm, she met lots of people, maybe she’d forgot already. He replies, gee, she’s sorry, now was there anything else, cuz she’s going to say buh-bye, now and close the door and figures them 2 will go get into Mr Car and drive away. He replies, her lack of cooperation has been noted ma’am, she replying, buh-bye, click.

Shadow dreams a whole life in darkness, surrounded by filth, his first night in Lakeside. A child’s life, long ago and far away, in a land across the ocean, in the lands where the sun rose, but this life containing no sunrises, only dimness by day and blindness by night. Nobody speaks to him, hearing human voices from outside, but not understanding the human speech any better then howling of owls or yelps of dogs, remembering or thinking he did, one night half a lifetime ago, when one of the big people had entered, quietly, hadn’t cuffed or fed him, but had picked him up to her breast and embraced him. She smells good and made crooning noises, hot drops of water falling from her face to his.

He’d been scared and wailed loudly in fear, she putting him down on the straw, hurriedly, and leaving the hut fastening the door behind her. He remembered this moment and treasured it, as he remembered the sweetness of a cabbage-heart, the tart taste of plums, crunch of apples, and greasy delight of roasted fish, and now he saw faces in the firelight, all of them looking at him as he’s led out form the hut for the first time, which was the only time. So this was what people looked like, raised in darkness, he’d never seen faces, everything so new, strange. The bonfire light hurt his eyes, they pulling on the rope around his neck to lead him to the space between the 2 bonfires where the man waited for him, and when the first blade was raised in the firelight, what a cheer went up from the crowd and the child from darkness started to laugh and laugh with them in delight and freedom, then the blade came down.

Shadow opens his eyes and realizes he’s hungry and cold, in an apartment with a layer of ice clouding the inside of the window glass. He thinks, his frozen breath, then gets out of bed, pleased he didn’t have to dress, scraped at a window with a fingernail as he passed, feeling the ice collect underneath his nail and melt. He tries to remember his dream, but doesn’t other than misery and darkness, putting on his shoes. He figured he’d walk into the town center, walk across the bridge across the northern end of the lake, if he’d gotten the geography right.

He puts his thin jacket on, remembering his promise to himself to buy a warm winter coat, opens his apt door and steps onto the wooden deck. The cold takes his breath away, breathing in and feeling the hairs in his nostrils freeze into rigidity, he wondering how cold it was, the cold snap having come, for sure. It couldn’t be much above zero and it wouldn’t be a pleasant walk, but he was certain he could make it into town without too much trouble. He tries to remember if Hinz said it was a 10 minute walk, and Shadow was a big man, so could walk briskly and keep warm.

He sets off for the bridge, and soon starts coughing, a dry, thin cough, the bitterly cold air touching his lungs. Soon his ears, face and lips hurt, then his feet. He thrusts his hands in his pockets, clenching his fingers, and found himself remembering Low Key Lyesmith’s tall tales of MN winters, esp one about a hunter treed by a bear during a hard freeze, who took out his dick and pissed an arching yellow stream of steaming urine, which was already frozen hard before it hit the ground. Then slides down the rock-hard frozen-piss-pole to freedom, leaving Shadow with a wry smile at the memory and another dry, painful cough.

Step after step, he glances back to see the apt building wasn’t as far away as he expected. He decides this walk was a mistake, but he was already 3 or 4 minutes from the apt, and the bridge was in sight. It made as much sense to press on as go back, but reminded himself how there wasn’t food, so keeps walking and revising his temperature estimates downward. -10? 20, 40 maybe, the strange point when Celsius and Fahrenheit say the same thing, probably not this cold, but then there was wind chill and it was hard, steady, and continuous, blowing over the lake.

He remembered enviously the chemical hand and foot-warmers wishing he had them now, he guessing after 10 more minutes of walking and seeming no nearer the bridge. He was too cold to shiver, his eyes hurt this not merely cold, but sci-fi, this was a story set on the dark side of Mercury back when they thought Mercury had a dark side. This was somewhere out on rocky Pluto, where the sun is only another star, shining drily a little more brightly in the darkness. This is just a hair away from the places where air comes in buckets and pours like beer.

The occasional cars which roared past him seemed unreal, spaceships, little freeze-dried packages of metal and glass, inhabited by people dressed more warmly than him. An old song his mother’d loved Winter Wonderland started playing in his head, and he hummed it through closed lips, keeping pace to it as he walked. He’d lost all sensation in his feet, looking down at his black leather shoes at the thin cotton socks, and started seriously worrying about frost bite. This was beyond a joke and moved beyond foolishness, slipping over the line into genuine twenty-four karat Jesus-Christ-I-fucked-up-big-time territory.

His clothes may as well have been netting or lace, the wind blowing through him, freezing his bones and the marrow in his bones froze the lashes of his eyes, froze the warm place under his balls, which were retreating into his pelvic cavity. He tells himself, keep walking, he can stop and drink a pile of air when he gets home. A Beatles song starts in his head, adjusting his pace to match, only when he got to the chorus he realizes he’s humming ‘Help!‘. He was almost at the bridge, now having to cross it, then he’d still be another 10 minutes from the stores, maybe a little more.

A dark car passes him, stops, then reverses in a foggy cloud of exhaust smoke and halted beside him. A window slides down and the haze and steam from the window mixed with the exhaust to form a dragon’s breath which surrounded the car. A cop inside asks, everything ok here? Shadow’s first instinct was to say, yup, everything’s just fine and jim-dandy thank you, officer, nothing’s happening here. Move on, nothing to see.

It was too late for this though, and he started to say, he thinks he’s freezing, he was walking into Lakeside to buy food, and clothes, but underestimates the length of the walk -, he was this far through his sentence in his head, when he realized all which had come out was, ‘F-f-freezing‘ and a chattering noise, and said, so s-sorry. Cold. Sorry. The cop pulls open the back door of the car and says, get in there this moment and warm up, ok? Shadow climbs in gratefully, sitting in the back and rubbing his hands together, trying not to worry about frostbitten toes. The cop gets back in the driver seat, Shadow staring at him through the metal grille, trying not to think of the last time he’d been in the back of a cop car or notice no door handles in the back, and concentrate rubbing life back into his hands.

His face hurt along with his red fingers, and now the warmth in his toes were making them hurt again, Shadow figuring this was a good sign. The cop puts the car in drive and moves off, and without turning to look at Shadow, only talking a little louder, he says, y’know, if he’ll pardon him saying so, a real stupid thing to do, he hadn’t heard any of the weather advisories? It’s minus 31 out there, god alone knows what the wind chill is, minus 60 or 70, although figures when down at minus 30, wind chills least to worry about. Shadow replies, thanks for stopping, very, very grateful.

Cop responds, woman in Rhinelander went out this morning to fill her bird feeder in her robe and carpet slippers, and she froze, literally to the sidewalk. She’s in intensive care now, it was on the radio this morning, he’s new to town, this almost a question, but the cop knew the answer already. Shadow responds having come in on the bus last evening, and figured today he’d buy himself some warm clothes, food, and a car, wasn’t expecting this cold. The cop replies, yeah, it took him by surprise as well, he was too busy worrying about global warming, he’s Chad Mulligan, chief of police.

Shadow responds, Mike Ainsel, he then asks if Mike’s feeling any better, Shadow stating a little, yes. Chad asks, so where’d he like him to take him first? Shadow places his hands down where the heat was blowing, pain full on his fingers and pulling them away, deciding to let it happen in its own time, asking, could he drop him in the town center? Chad replies, wouldn’t hear of it, long as he didn’t need him to drive a getaway car for his bank robbery, he’ll happily take him wherever he needed to go, think of it as the town welcome wagon.

Shadow asks, where would he suggest they start? Chad confirms he came in last night, Shadow agreeing, so asks if he’d eaten breakfast, yet? Shadow saying not yet. Chad replying, well seems like a heck of a good starting place to him, we over the bridge now and entering the town, Chad announcing we were on Main St, then after turning says, this is the town square.

Even in winter the town square was impressive, but knew the place was meant to be seen in summer, it’d be a riot of color, with poppies, irises and all kinds of flowers. The clump of birch trees in one corner green and silver bower, now it a colorless place beautiful in a skeletal way, the band shell empty, the fountain turned off for the winter, the brownstone city hall capped by white snow. Chad then says, and this is Mabel’s, stopping the car outside a high glass fronted building. He gets out of the car and opens the door for Shadow, the two putting their heads down against the cold and wind, hurrying across the sidewalk into a warm room, fragrant with new-baked bread, pastry, soup, and bacon.

The place was almost empty, Mulligan sitting at a table, Shadow sitting opposite, Shadow suspecting he was doing this to get a feel for the stranger in town, then again he may be what he appeared friendly, helpful good. A big not fat woman bustled over to their table, in her 60s, her hair bottle-bronze. She greets Chad and says he’ll want a hot chocolate while he’s thinking, she handing them to laminated menus. He agrees, but without cream on top, he saying to Shadow, Mable knows him too well.

Shadow’s asked, what’ll it be, pal? Shadow also deciding hot chocolate sounding great and happy to have whipped cream on top. Mabel relies, that’s good, live dangerously, hon. Is Chad going to introduce her? Is this young man a new officer?

Chad replies, not yet, with a flash of white teeth, this is Mike Ainsel, he moved to Lakeside last night, now if she’ll excuse him. He gets up and walks to the back of the room through the door marked POINTERS, next to a door labeled SETTERS. Mabel continues to Shadow, he’s the new man in the apartment up on Northridge Rd, the old Pilson place, oh yes, she says happily, she knew just who he is. Hinzelmann was by this morning for his morning pasty, he told her all about him.

Them boys only having hot chocolate or he want to look at a breakfast menu? Shadow replies, breakfast for him, what’s good? Mabel replies, everything’s good, she makes it, but this is the furthest south and east of the yoopie he can get pasties, and they’re particularly good, warming and filling, too, her specialty. Shadow had no idea what a pasty was, but said this would be fine and in a few moments Mabel returned with a plate with what looked like a folded-over pie on it.

The lower half was wrapped in a paper napkin, Shadow picking it up with the napkin and biting into it, it warm and filled with meat, potatoes, carrots, onions. He says, first pasty he’s ever had, it’s real good, she replying, they’re a yoopie thing, mostly one needs to be at least up Ironwood way to get one. The Cornish men who came over to work the iron mines brought them over. Shadow asks, Yoopie?

She responds, upper peninsula, UP, yoopie. Where the Yoopers come from, the little chunk of MI to the NE. The chief of police comes back and picks up the hot chocolate and slurps it. He says, Mabel, is she forcing this nice young man to eat one of her pasties?

Shadow responds, it’s good, and it was too, a savory delight wrapped in hot pastry. Chad states, they go straight to the belly, patting his own, he warning him, ok, so he needs a car? With his parka off, he was revealed as a lanky man with a round, apple-belly gut on him. He looked harassed and competent, more like an engineer than a cop.

Shadow nods, mouth full, Chad continues, right, he made some calls, Justin Liebowitz’s selling his jeep, wants 4k, will settle for 3k. The Gunthers have a Toyota 4Runner for sale for 8 months, ugly sonofabitch, but at this point would probably pay him to take it out of their driveway, and if he doesn’t care about ugly, it’s got to be a great deal. He used the phone in the men’s room, left a message for Missy Gunther down at Lakeside Realty, but wasn’t in yet, probably getting her hair done down at Sheila’s. The pasty remains good as Shadow chews his way through it, it astonishingly filling.

His mother would’ve said, stick-to-your-ribs food, sticks to your sides. Chad says, so, wiping hot chocolate foam from around his lips, he figures we’d stop off next at Henning’s Farm and Home Supplies, get him a real winter wardrobe, swing by Dave’s Finest Food, so he can fill his larder, then he’ll drop him up by the Lakeside Realty. If he can put down a thousand up front for the car they’ll be happy, otherwise $500 a month for 4 months should see them ok. It’s an ugly car, like he said, but if the kid hadn’t painted it purple it’d be a 10k car, and reliable, and he’ll need something like this to get around this winter, he ask him.

Shadow replies, this is very good of him, but shouldn’t he be out catching criminals, not helping newcomers? Not like he’s complaining, he understands. Mabel chuckles, we all tell him this, Chad shrugs, it’s a good town, he says simply. Not much trouble, he’ll always get someone speeding within city limits, which is a good thing, traffic tickets pay his wages.

Fri Sat nights he gets some jerk who gets drunk and beats on a spouse - and this one can go both ways, believe him. Men and Women, and he learned when he was on the force in Green Bay, he’d rather attend a bank robbery than a domestic in a big city, but out there things are quiet. They call him out when someone’s locked their keys in their vehicle, barking dogs. Every year there’s a couple of high school kids caught with weed behind the bleachers.

Biggest cop case they’ve had there in 6 years was when Dan Schwartz got drunk and shot up his own trailer, then went on the run, down Main St, in his wheelchair, waving this darn shotgun, shouting he’d shoot anyone who got in his way, no one would stop him from getting to the interstate. He thinks he was on his way to D.C. to shoot the President, he still laughs whenever he thinks of Dan heading down the interstate in his wheelchair of his with the bumper sticker on the back. MY JUVENILE DELINQUENT IS SCREWING YOUR HONOR STUDENT. Remember, Mabel?

She nods with lips pursed, not seeming to find it as funny as Chad did. Shadow asks, what’d he do? Chad replies, he talked to him, he gave him the shotgun, slept it off down at jail. Dan’s not a bad guy, just drunk and upset. Shadow pays for his own breakfast, and over Chad’s half-hearted protests, but hot chocolates.

Henning’s Farm and Home was a warehouse-sized building on the south of town, which sold everything from tractors to toys (the toys along with the Xmas ornaments, were already on sale). The store was bustling with post-Xmas shoppers, Shadow recognizing the younger of the girl’s on the bus, trailing after he parents. He waved at her, and she gave him a hesitant, blue-rubber-banded smile, Shadow wondering idly what she’d look like in 10 years time. Probably as beautiful as the girl at the Henning’s Farm checkout counter, scanning his purchases with a chattering hand-held gun, capable, Shadow had no doubt, of ringing up a tractor if someone drove it through.

The girl asks, 10 pairs of long underwear? Stocking up, huh? She looked like a movie starlet, making Shadow feel 14 again, and tongue-tied and foolish, saying nothing while she rang up the thermal boots, gloves, sweaters, and goose-down-filled coat. He had now wish to put the credit card Wed had given him to the test, not with Chad standing helpfully beside hime, so he paid for everything in cash.

Then he took his bags into the men’s room and came out wearing many of his purchases. Chad comments, looking good, big fella, Shadow responding, at least he’s warm enough. At Chad’s invitation he put his shopping bags in the back of the police car and rode in the passenger seat. Chad asks, so what does he do, Mr. Ainsel?

Big guy like him, what’s his profession, and will he be practicing it in Lakeside? Shadow’s heart started pounding, but his voice was steady saying, he works for his uncle, he buying and selling stuff all over the country, he just does the heavy lifting. Chad asks, does he pay well? Shadow responds, he’s family, he knows he isn’t going to rip him off, and he’s learning a little about the trade on the way, until he figures out what it is he really wants to do. It came out of him with conviction, smooth as a snake.

He knew everything about big Mike Ainsel in this moment, and he liked him. Mike had none of the problems Shadow had, he’d never been married, never been interrogated on a freight train by Wood and Stone. TVs didn’t speak to him, a voice in his head, say, he want to see Lucy’s tits? Mike didn’t have bad dreams, or believe there was a storm coming.

He filled his shopping basket at Dave’s Finest Foods, doing what he thought of as a gas station stop - milk, eggs, bread, apples, cheese, cookies, just some food, doing a real one later. As Shadow moved around, Chad greeted people and introduced Shadow to them. Saying, this is Mike Ainsel, he’s taken the empty apartment at the old Pilsen place, up around the back. Shadow gives up trying to remember names, just shaking hands with people and smiling, sweating a little, uncomfortable in his insulated layers in the hot store.

Chad drove Shadow across the street to Lakeside Realty. Missy Gunther, hair freshly set and lacquered, not needing introduction - she knowing exactly who Mike was. Why nice Mr. Borson, his uncle Emerson, such a nice man, he’d been by, what, about 6, 8 weeks ago now, and rented the apartment up at the old Pilsen place, and wasn’t the view to die for up there? Well honey, just wait til the spring, we’re so lucky, so many of the lakes in this part of the world go bright green from algae in the summer.

It’d turn the stomach, but their lake, well, come 4th of July, he could still practically drink it, and Mr. Borson paid for a whole year’s lease in advance, and as for the Toyota 4Running, she couldn’t believe Chad still remembered it, and yes, she’d be delighted to get rid of it. Tell the truth, she’d pretty much resigned herself to giving it to Hinzelmann as this year’s klunker, and just taking the tax write-off. Not to say the car’s a clunker, far from it, no, it was her son’s car before he went to school in Green Bay, and well, painted it purple one day, and haha, she certainly hoped Mike liked purple, which was all she had to say, and if he didn’t, she wouldn’t blame him… Chad excuses himself near the middle of this litany, saying, looks like they need him back at the office good meeting him, Mike, and moves Shadow’s shopping bags into the back of Missy Gunther’s station wagon.

Missy drives Shadow back to her place, where, in the drive, he saw an elderly SUV, the blown snow bleaching half of it blinding white, while the rest of it painted the drippy purple someone would need to be very stoned, very often to even start to be able to find attractive. Still, the car started up on the first try and the heater worked, although it took 10 minutes of running the engine with the heater on full blast before it even started to change the interior of the car from unbearably cold to merely chilly. While this occurred, Missy took Shadow to her kitchen - excusing the mess, but the little one’s leave toys all over after Xmas, and she didn’t have the heart. Would he care for some leftover turkey dinner?

Last year we did goose, but this year it was a big old turkey - and Shadow takes a large red toy off a window seat, and sits while Missy asks if he’d met his neighbors yet, Shadow confessing he hadn’t. There were, he was informed whilst the coffee dripped and brewed, 4 other inhabitants of his apartment building. Back when it was the Pilsen place, the Pilsens lived in the downstairs flat and rented the 2 upper flats. Now their apartment, which was downstairs, was taken by a couple young men, Mr. Holz, and Neiman, they actually a couple when she said couple, Mr. Ainsel.

Heavens, we have all kinds there, more than one kind of tree in the forest, although mostly those kind of people wind up in Madison or the Twin Cities, but truth to tell, nobody here gives it a 2nd thought. They’re in Key West for the winter, they back in April, and he’ll meet them then. The thing about Lakeside is it’s a good town, now next door to him was Marguerite Olsen and her little boy, a sweet lady, sweet, sweet lady, but she’s had a hard life, still sweet as pie, and she works for the Lakeside News. Not the most exciting newspaper in the world, but truth to tell Missy thought this was probably the way most folk around there liked it.

She says, oh, pouring him coffee, she only wishes Mr. Ainsel could see the town in summer or late in the spring, when the lilacs and the apple and cherry blossoms were out. She thought there was nothing like it for beauty, nothing like it anywhere in the world. Shadow gives her a $500 deposit and climbs into the car, starting to back it up out of her front yard and onto the driveway proper, when Missy taps his front window. She says, this was for him, she nearly forgot, handing him a buff envelope.

She continues, it’s kind of a gag, we’d had them printed up a few years back, he not having to look now. He thanks her and drives cautiously back into town, taking the road which ran around the lake. He wished he could see it in the spring or summer or fall, it’d be very beautiful, he hadn’t doubt of this. In 10 minutes he was home, parking out on the street and walking up the outside steps to his cold apartment.

He unpacked his shopping, put the food in the cupboard and fridge, then opened the envelope Missy had given him. It contained a passport, blue laminated and inside a proclamation with his name handwritten in Missy’s precise handwriting, was a citizen of Lakeside. There was a map of the town on the next page, the rest filled with discount coupons for various local stores. Shadow says aloud, he thinks he may like it there, looking out the icy window at the frozen lake, continuing, if it ever warms up.

At around 2 pm, there was a bang at the front door, Shadow had been practicing the Sucker Vanish with a quarter, tossing it from one hand to the other undetectably. His hands were cold and clumsy enough he kept dropping the coin on the table, and the knock at the door made him drop it again. He goes to open it, a moment of pure fear seeing a man at the door wearing a black mask, which covered the lower half of his face. The kind a bank robber might wear on TV or a serial killer from a cheap movie may wear to scare his victims.

The top of the man’s head was covered by a black knit cap. Still, the man was smaller and slighter than Shadow and he didn’t appear to be armed and wore a bright plaid coat, of the kind serial killers normally avoided. The visitor says, muffled, Ih hihelhan, Shadow responds, huh? The man pulls the mask down, revealing Hinzelmann’s cheerful face, repeating, he said, it’s Hinzelmann.

You know, Shadow doesn’t know what we did before they came up with these masks. Well, he does remember what we did, thick knitted caps, which went all around their face, and scarves and he didn’t want to know what else. He thinks it’s a miracle what they come up with these days. He may be an old man, but not going to grumble about progress, not him.

He finishes this speech by thrusting a basket at Shadow, filled high with local cheeses, bottles, jars, and several small salamis, which proclaimed themselves to be venison summer sausage, and by coming inside. He says, merry day after Xmas, his nose, ears, and cheeks red as raspberries. He heard he’d already ate a whole one of Mabel’s pasties, brought him a few things. Shadow states, this was very kind of him, Hinzelmann replying, kind, nothing, he’s going to stick it to him next week for the raffle.

The chamber of commerce runs it and he runs the chamber of commerce. Last year we’d raised almost 17k for the children’s ward at Lakeside Hospital. Shadow asks, well why doesn’t he put him down for a ticket now? Hinzelmann informs, it don’t start until the day the clunker hits the ice, looking out of Shadow’s window toward the lake, cold out there, must’ve dropped 50 degrees last night.

Shadow agrees, it happened really fast, Hinzelmann responds, we used to pray for freezes like this back in the old days. His daddy told him when the settlers were first coming into these parts, farming people and lumber people, long before the mining people came out, although mines never really happened in this country, which we could’ve done, for there’s iron enough under there… Shadow interrupts, he’d pray for days like this? Hinzelmann explains, well, yah, it was the only way the settlers survived back then.

Weren’t enough food for everyone, and we couldn’t just go down to Dave’s and fill up his shopping trolley in the old days, no sir. So his grampaw, he got to thinking, and when a really cold day like this comes along, he’d take his grammaw and the kids, his uncle and aunt and daddy, he was the youngest, and the serving girl, and the hired man, and he’d go down with them to the creek, give ’em a little rum-and-herbs drink. It’s a recipe he’d got from the old country, then he’d pour creek water over them. Course they’d freeze in seconds, stiff and blue as so many popsicles.

He’d haul them to a trench they’d already dug and filled with straw, stacking them down there, one by one, like so much cordwood in the trench, and he’d pack straw around them, then he’d cover the top of the trench with two-b’-fours to keep the critters out - in those days there were wolves and bears and all sorts he never sees any more around there, no hodags though. This is only a story about the hodags, and he wouldn’t ever stretch his credibility by telling him no stories, no sir - he’d cover the trench, and the next snowfall would cover it up completely, save for the flag he planted to show him where the trench was. Then his grampaw would ride through the winter in comfort and never have to worry about running out of food or out of fuel, and when he saw the true spring was coming, he’d go to the flag, and he’d dig through the snow, move the two-b’-fours, and carry them in one by one, and set the family in front of the fire to thaw. Nobody ever minded except one of the hired men, who lost half an ear to a family of mice who nibbled it off one time his grampaw didn’t push the two-b’-fours closed all the way.

Of course, in those days they had real winters, they could do this back then. These pussy winters we got nowadays, it don’t hardly get cold enough. Shadow asks, no?, playing straight man, and enjoying it enormously. Hinzelmann replies, not since the winter of ‘49, and he’d be too young to remember this one, this was a winter.

He sees he bought himself a vee-hicle, Shadow stating, yup, what does he think? Hinzelmann replies, truth to tell, he never liked the Gunther boy, he had a trout stream down in the woods a way, on back of his property, way back, well, it’s town land, but he’d put down stones in the river, made little ponds and places the trout liked to live. Caught him some beauties too - one fellow must’ve been pretty much 30 inches long, and the little Gunther so and so kicked down each of the pools and threatened to report him to the DNR. Now he’s in Green Bay, and soon enough he’ll be back here, and if there were any justice in the world, he’d’ve gone off into the world as a winter runaway, but nope, sticks like a cockle burr to a woolen vest.

He starts to arrange the contents of Shadow’s welcome basket on the counter. Hinzelmann states, this is Katherine Powdermaker’s crab apple jelly, she’s been giving him a pot for Xmas for longer than Shadow’s been alive, and the sad truth was, he’d never opened a one. They’re down in his basement, 40, 50 pots. Maybe he’ll open one and discover he liked the stuff, meantime, here’s a pot for him, maybe he’ll like it.

Shadow puts the jar in the fridge along with the other presents Hinzelmann brought him. Shadow asks, what’s this?, holding up a tall, unlabeled bottle filled with a greenish buttery substance. Hinzelmann replies, olive oil, this is how it looks when it gets this cold, but don’t worry, it’ll cook up fine. Shadow replies, ok, what’re winter runaways?

Hinzelmann goes, mm, pushing his woolen cap above his ears, rubbed his temple with a pink forefinger and continues, well, it ain’t unique to Lakeside, we’re a good town, better than most, but ew’re not perfect. Some winters, well, maybe a kid gets a bit stir-crazy, when it gets so cold they can’t go out, and the snow’s so dry, they can’t make so much as a snowball without it crumbling away… Shadow asks, they run off? Hinzelmann nods gravely, he blames TV, showing all the kids things they’ll never have - Dallas, and Dynasty, and Beverly Hills and Hawaii Five-O, all this nonsense.

He hasn’t had a TV since ‘83, except a black and white set he keeps in the closet for if folk come in from out of town and there’s a big game on. Shadow asks, could he get him anything, Hinzelmann? He replies, not coffee, gives him heartburn, just water. Hinzelmann shakes his head and continues, biggest problem in this part of the world is poverty, not the kind we had in the Depression, but something more in, what’s the word, means it creeps in at the edges, like cock-a-roaches? Shadow supplies, insidious?

Hinzelmann confirms, yeah, logging’s dead, mining’s dead, tourists don’t drive further north than the Dells, ‘cept for a handful of hunters and some kids going to camp on the lakes - and they’re not spending their money in the towns. Shadow states, Lakeside seems kind of prosperous though. Hinzelmann, blue eyes blinking, then saying, and believe him, it takes a lot of work, hard work, but this is a good town, and all the work all the people here put into it’s worthwhile. Not to say his family weren’t poor as kids, ask him how poor we was as kids. Shadow puts on his straight-man face and asks, how poor was he as kids, Mr. Hinzelmann?

Hinzelmann replies, just Hinzelmann, Mike. We were so poor, we couldn’t afford a fire, come New Year’s Eve his father would suck on a peppermint, and them kids, we’d stand around with their hands outstretched, basking in the glow. Shadow makes a rim-shot noise and Hinzelmann puts on his ski-mask and did up his huge plaid coat, pulled out his car keys from his pocket and then pulled on his great gloves. Hinzelmann states, he get too bored up here, just come down to the store and ask for him, he’ll show him his collection hand-tied fishing flies.

Bore him so much getting back here will be a relief, his voice muffled but audible. Shadow with a smile responds, he’ll do this, then asks, how’s Tessie? Hinzelmann replies, hibernating, she’ll be out in the spring, take care now, Mr. Ainsel, and he closed the door behind him as he left. The apartment grew even colder, Shadow putting on his coat and gloves, then puts on his boots, hardly able to see through the windows now for the ice on the inside of the panes, which turned the view of the lake into an abstract image.

His breath clouded the air, he going out his apartment onto the wooden deck and knocking on the door next door. He heard a woman’s voice shouting at someone to, for heaven’s sake, shut up and turn the TV down - a kid, he thought, adults not shouting like this at other adults, not with this tone in their voice. The door opened and a tired woman with very long, very black hair was staring at him warily, and says, yes? Shadow greets, how do you do, ma’am, he’s Mike Ainsel, her next-door neighbor.

Her expression doesn’t change by a hair as she repeats, yes? Shadow replies, ma’am, it’s freezing in his apartment, little heat coming out of the grate, but not warming the place up at all. She looks him up and down, then a ghost of a smile touched the edges of her lips, saying, come in, then, if he doesn’t there’ll be no heat in there, either. He steps in, plastic, multicolored toys strewn all over the floor, small heaps of torn Xmas wrapping paper by the wall.

A small boy sits inches away from the TV, a video of Disney’s Hercules playing, an animated satyr stomping and shouting his way across the screen. Shadow keeps his back to the TV, his neighbor saying, ok, this is what he should do, first seal the windows, he can buy the stuff at Henning’s, it’s like Saran Wrap but for windows. Tape it to the windows, then if he wants to get fancy, run a blow-dryer on it, it stays there the whole winter. This stops the heat leaving through the windows, then he should buy a space heater or 2, the building’s furnace old and can’t cope with the real cold.

We’ve had some easy winters recently, she supposes we should be grateful, then puts out her hand, introducing herself, Marguerite Olsen. Shadow responds, good to meet her, pulling off a glove and shaking hands. Shadow says, ma’am, he’d always thought of Olsen's as being blonder than her. She responds, her ex-husband was as blond as they came, pink and blond, couldn’t tan at gunpoint.

Shadow replies, Missy Gunther told him she writes for the local paper, she responding, Missy tells everybody everything, she doesn’t see why we need a local paper with Missy around. She nods and continues, yes, some news reporting here and there, but her editor writes most of the news, she writes the nature, gardening, an opinion column every Sun and the ‘News From the Community‘ column, which tells, in mind-numbing detail, who went to dinner with who for 15 miles around, or is it who? Shadow replies, who, before he could stop himself, it’s the objective case. She looks at him with her black eyes, and Shadow experiences a moment of pure deja vu, thinking, he’s been here before. No she reminds him of someone.

She continues, anyway, this is how he heats up his apartment, Shadow replies, thank you, when it’s warm she and her little one must come over. She replies, his name’s Leon, good meeting him, Mister… she’s sorry. He supplies, Ainsel, Mike Ainsel, she asking, and what sort of a name is Ainsel? Shadow not having any idea, responds, his name, he’s afraid he was never very interested in family history.

She supposes, Norwegian, maybe? He replying, we were never close, then he remembered Uncle Emerson Borson and adds, on this side, anyway. By the time Wed arrives, Shadow had put clear plastic sheets across all the windows and had one space heater running in the main room and another in the bedroom, it now practically cozy. Wed, by way of greeting asks, what the hell is this purple piece of shit he’s driving? Shadow replies, well, he drove off with his white piece of shit, where is it, by the way?

Wed states he traded it in Duluth, can’t be too careful. Don’t worry, he’ll get his share when this is all done. Shadow asks, what’s he doing here in Lakeside, he means, not in the world. Wed smiled his smile, the one making Shadow want to hit him and says, he’s living here, since it’s the last place they’d look, he can keep him out of sight here.

Shadow asks, by they he means the black hat? Wed confirms, exactly, he’s afraid the House on the Rock is now out of bounds, it’s a little difficult, but we can cope. Now it’s only stamping their feet, flag-waving, half-turn (caracole), and saunter until the action begins, a little later than any of them expected, he thinking they’ll hold off til spring. Nothing big can happen til then, Shadow asking, how come?

Wed states, since they may babble on about micro-milliseconds and virtual worlds and paradigm shifts and what-have-you, but they still inhabit this planet and are still bound by the cycle of the year. These were the dead months, a victory in these months in a dead victory. Shadow replies, he had no idea what he’s talking about, which wasn’t entirely true, he had a vague idea, but hoped it was wrong. Wed responds, it’s going to be a bad winter, and we are going to use our time as wisely as we can, we’ll rally our troops and pick our battleground.

Shadow says, ok, knowing Wed was telling him the truth or a part, war was coming; no this wasn’t it, the war had begun, battle was coming. Shadow continues, Mad Sweeney said he was working for Wed when we met him the first night, and said this before he died. Wed asks, and would he have wanted to employ someone who couldn’t even best a sad case like this in a bar fight? But never fear, he’s repaid his faith in him a dozen times over, has he ever been to Vegas?

Shadow specifies, Las Vegas, Nevada? Wed confirms, this is the one, Shadow replying, no. Wed states, we’re flying in from Madison later tonight, on a gentleman’s red eye, a charter plane for High Rollers, he convinced them we should be on it. Shadow asks gently, curiously, doesn’t he ever get tired of lying?

Wed replies, not in the slightest, anyway, it’s true, we’re playing for the highest stakes of all. It shouldn’t take them more than a couple hours to get to Madison, the roads clear. So lock his door and turn off the heaters, it’d be a terrible thing if he burned the house down in his absence. Shadow asks, who were we going to see in Vegas?

Wed tells him, Shadow then turns the heaters off, packs some clothes in an overnight bag, then turns back to Wed and says, look, he feels kind of stupid, he knows he just told him who we’re going to see, but he dunno, he just had a brain-fart or something, it’s gone, who is it again? Wed tells him once more, this time Shadow almost had it, the name at the tip of his mind, wishing he’d been paying closer attention when Wed told him, so he let it go. Shadow asks, who’s driving? Wed replying, he is.

They walk out of the house, down the wooden stairs and the icy path to where a black Lincoln town car was parked, Shadow drove. Entering the casino, one is beset at every side by invitation, such it would take a man of stone, heartless, mindless, and curiously devoid of extreme greed, to decline them. Listen: a machine gun rattle of coins, tumbling and spurting down a slot machine tray, and overflow onto monogrammed carpets, replaced by the siren clangor of the slots jangling, blippeting chorus swallowed by the huge room, muted to a comforting background chatter by the time one reaches the card tables. The distant noise only loud enough to keep the adrenaline flowing through the gambler’s veins.

There’s a secret which casinos possess, a secret they hold and guard and prize. The holiest of their mysteries, since most people don’t gamble to win money, though this is what’s advertised, sold, claimed and dreamed, but this is merely the easy lie which allows the gamblers to lie to themselves. The big lie getting them through the enormous, ever-open welcoming doors. The secret: people gamble to lose money, coming to casinos for the moment in which they feel alive, to ride the spinning wheel and turn with the cards and lose themselves, with the coins in the slots.

They want to know they matter and may brag about the nights they won, the money they take from the casino, but they treasure, secretly the time they lose, it’s a sacrifice of sorts. The money flows through the casino in an uninterrupted stream of green and silver, from hand to hand, gambler to croupier, to cashier, to the management, to security, and finally ending up in the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctum, the Counting Room, and it’s there one comes to rest. Where the greenbacks are sorted, stacked, indexed, in a space, which is slowly becoming redundant as more and more of the money which flows through the casino is imaginary: an electrical sequence of ons and offs, sequences flowing down phone lines. In the Counting Room one sees 3 men counting money under the glassy stare of the cameras they can see, insectile gazes of tiny cameras they can’t see.

During the course of one shift each of the men counts more money than he’ll see in all the pay packets of his life, each man when asleep, dreaming of counting money, of stacks and paper bands and numbers which climb inevitably, sorted and lost. Each of the 3 men has idly wondered, not less than once a week, how to evade the security systems and run off with as much money as he could haul, and reluctantly, each man inspecting the dream as impractical, settling for a steady paycheck and avoiding the twin specters of prison and unmarked grave, and in the sanctum sanctorum there are 3 men who count, guards who watch and bring and take money away, and then there’s another person. His charcoal-gray suit immaculate, hair dark, clean shaven and his face, and demeanor in every sense forgettable. None of the other men has even observed he’s there, or if they have noticed, have forgotten him on the instant.

As the shift ends the doors are opened, and the man leaves, walking with the guards, through the corridors, their feet shushing on monogrammed carpets. The money in strongboxes, are wheeled to an interior loading bay, where it’s loaded into armored cars. As the ramp door swings open to allow the armored car out onto the early streets of Vegas, the man walks unnoticed, through the doorway, saunters up the ramp, out onto the sidewalk, not glancing up to see the imitation NY to his left. Las Vegas has become a child’s picture book dream of a city - here a storybook castle, there a sphinx-flanked black pyramid beaming white light into the darkness as a landing beam for UFOs, and everywhere neon oracles, and twisting screens predict happiness and good fortune.

Announce singers and comedians and magicians in residence or on their way, and the lights always flash and beckon and call. Once every hour a volcano erupts in light and flame, once every hour a pirate ship sinks a man o’war. The man ambles comfortably on the sidewalk, feeling the flow of the money through the town. In the summer the streets are baking, and each store doorway he passes breathes wintry A/C out into the sweaty warmth and chills the sweat on his face.

Now, in the desert winter, there’s a dry cold, which he appreciates, in his mind the movement of money forming a fine lattice-work, a 3-dimensional cat’s-cradle of light and motion. What he finds attractive about this desert city is the speed of movement, the way it moves from place to place and hand to hand, it’s a rush for him, a high, and it pulls him like an addict to the street. A taxi follows him slowly down the street, keeping its distance, he not noticing, not occurring to him to notice, he so rarely noticed himself he found the concept he could be followed almost inconceivable. It’s 4 a.m. and he’s drawn to a hotel and casino which has been out of style 30 years, still running until tomorrow or 6 months from now when they’ll implode it and knock it down and build a pleasure palace where it was and forget it forever.

Nobody knows or remembers him, the lobby bar quiet and tacky, the air blue with old cigarette smoke and someone’s about to drop several million dollars on a poker game in a private room upstairs. The man settles at the bar several floors below the game and ignored by the waitress. A Muzak version of ‘Why Can’t He Be You‘ is playing, almost subliminally as 5 Elvis impersonators, each man wearing a different color jumpsuit, watch a late-night rerun of a football game on the bar TV. A big man in a light gray suit sits at the man in the charcoal suit’s table, and noticing him even if she doesn’t notice the other man, the waitress, who is too thin to be pretty, too obviously anorectic to work Luxor or the Tropicana, and counting the minutes til she gets off work, comes straight over and smiles.

He grins widely at her saying, she looks a treat tonight, m’dear, a fine sight for these poor old eyes, and scenting a large tip, she smiles broadly at him. The man orders a Jack Daniel’s for himself and a Laphroaig and water for the man in charcoal sitting beside him. Wed (being referred throughout as ‘the man in the light gray suit‘ for fuck sake) says, he knows when his drink arrives, the finest line of poetry ever uttered in the history of this whole damn country was said by Canada Bill Jones in 1853 in Baton Rouge while he was being robbed blind in a crooked game of faro. George Devol, who, like Canada Bill wasn’t aversed to fleecing the odd sucker, drew Bill aside, and asked him if he couldn’t see the game was crooked, and Canada Bill sighs and shrugs saying, you know, but it’s the only game in town, and goes back to the game.

Dark eyes stare at Wed distrustfully, the man in charcoal saying something in reply, Wed, who has a graying reddish beard, shakes his head. Wed says, look, he’s sorry about what went down in Wisconsin, but he got them all out safely, didn’t he? No one was hurt. The man sips his Laphroaig and water, savoring the marshy taste, the body-in-the-bog quality of the whisky, then asks a question.

Wed replies, he doesn’t know, everything’s moving faster than he expected, everyone having a hard on for the kid he hired to run errands - he’s got him outside, waiting in the taxi, is he still in? The man replies and Wed shakes his head saying, she’s not been seen for 200 years and if she’s not dead, she’s taken herself out of the picture. Something else is said, Wed saying, look, knocking his Jack Daniel’s back, he come in, be there when we need him, and he’ll take care of him. Whaddoeshewant? Soma?

He can get him a bottle, the real stuff. The man stares, then nods reluctantly, and makes a comment. Wed replies, of course he is, smiling like a knife, what does he expect, but look at it this way: it’s the only game in town. Wed reaches out a paw-like hand and shakes the other man’s well-manicured hand, then walks away.

The thin waitress comes over, puzzled, now there’s only one man at the corner table, she asking, he doing ok? Is his friend coming back? The man sighs and explains his friend won’t be returning, and thus she won’t be paid for her time or trouble. Then, seeing the hurt in her eyes, takes pity, examines the golden threads in his mind, watches the matrix, follows the money until he spots a node and tells her if she’s outside Treasure Island at 6 am, 30 minutes after she gets off work, she’ll meet an oncologist from Denver, who will have just won $40k at a craps table, and will need a mentor, partner, someone to help him dispose of it all in the 48 hours before he gets on a place home.

The words evaporate in the waitress’s mind, but they leave her happy, she sighing and noting the guys in the corner have done a runner, and didn’t even tip her and it occurs to her, instead of driving straight home when she ends her shift, she’s going to drive over to Treasure Island, but she would never, if asked, be able to say why. Shadow asks as they walk back down the Vegas concourse, so who was the guy he was seeing? There were slot machines in the airport, even at this time of morning people stood in front of them, feeding them coins. Shadow wonders if there were those who never left the airport, who got off their planes, walked along the Jetway into the airport building and stopped there, trapped by the spinning images and flashing lights, people who would stay in the airport til they fed their last quarter to the machines, and then would turn around and get onto the plane back home.

He guessed it must’ve happened, suspecting there wasn’t much which hadn’t happened in Vegas at some point or other, and America was so damn big with so many people there was always bound to be somebody, and then he realizes he’d zoned out as Wed had been telling him who the man in the dark suit they’d followed in the taxi had been and he’d missed it. Wed finishes, so he’s in, it’ll cost him a bottle of Soma, though. Shadow asks, what’s Soma? Wed replies, it’s a drink, they walking onto the charter plane, empty but for them and a trio of corporate big spenders who needed to be back in Chicago by the start of the next business day.

Wed gets comfortable, orders a Jack Daniel’s, and says, his land of people see his kind of people…, hesitating, it’s like bees and honey, each bee making only a tiny, tiny drop of honey. It takes thousands, millions perhaps of them all working together to make the pot of honey he has on his breakfast table. Now imagine he could eat nothing but honey, this is what it’s like for his kind of people… we feed on belief, prayer, love. It takes a lot of people believing just the tiniest bit to sustain us, this is what we need, instead of food, belief.

Shadow asks again, and Soma is…? Wed continues, to take the analogy further, it’s honey wine, mead, he chuckles, it’s a drink, concentrated prayer and belief, distilled in a potent liqueur. They were somewhere over Nebraska eating an unimpressive inflight breakfast when Shadow says, his wife. Wed states, the dead one, Shadow continues, Laura doesn’t want to be dead, she told him, after she got him away from the guys on the train.

Wed comments, the action of a fine wife, freeing him from durance vile, and murdering those who’d have harmed him, he should treasure her, nephew Ainsel. Shadow states, she wants to be really alive, not one of the walking dead or whatever she is, she wants to live again, can they do this? Is it possible? Wed doesn’t respond for long enough Shadow starts to wonder if he’d heard the question, or if he’d possibly fallen asleep with his eyes open, then staring ahead of him as he talked, says, he knows a charm which can cure pain and sickness, and lift the grief from the heart of the grieving.

He knew a charm which will heal with a touch, another charm which turns aside the weapons of an enemy, another to free himself from all bonds and locks, a fifth charm, he can catch a bullet in flight and take no harm from it. His words, quiet, urgent, gone was the hectoring tone, and the grin, he spoke as if he were reciting the words of a religious ritual, like he was speaking something dark and painful. A sixth: spells sent to hurt him will only hurt the sender, a 7th he knew, he can quench a fire simply by looking at it. An 8th, if any man hates him, he can win his friendship, a 9th, he can sing the wind to sleep and calm a storm for long enough to bring a ship to shore.

These were the first 9 charms he learned, 9 nights he hung on the bare tree, his side pierced with a spear’s point, swaying and blowing in the cold wind and the hot winds, without food or water, a sacrifice of himself to himself, and the worlds opened to him. For a 10th charm, he learned to dispel witches, to spin them around in the skies so they’ll never find their way back to their own doors again. A 11th, if he sings it when a battle rages it can take warriors through the tumult unscathed and unhurt, and bring them safely back to their hearth and home. A 12th charm he knew, if he sees a hanged man he can bring him down from the gallows to whisper to them all he remembers.

A 13th, if he sprinkles water on a child’s head, they won’t fall in battle, a 14th, he knows all the names of every damned one of the gods. A 15th, he has a dream of power, glory, and wisdom, and can make people believe his dreams. His voice is so low now, Shadow has to strain to hear it over the plane’s engine noise. A 16th he knows, if he needs love, he can turn the mind and heart of any woman.

A 17th, no woman he wants will ever want another, and he knew an 18th, and this charm the greatest of all, he can tell to no man, for a secret, which no one knows, but he is the most powerful secret there can ever be. He sighs and stops talking, Shadow feeling his skin crawl, as if he’d seen a door open to another place, somewhere worlds away where hanged men blew in the wind at every crossroads, where witches shrieked overhead in the night. All Shadow said is, Laura, Wed turning his head, staring into Shadow’s pale gray eyes with his own, saying, he can’t make her live again, he doesn’t even know why she isn’t as dead as she ought to be. Shadow replies, he thinks he did it, it was his fault.

Wed raises a bushy eyebrow, Shadow continuing, Mad Sweeney gave him a golden coin, back when he showed him how to do the trick. From what he said, he gave him the wrong coin, what he gave him was something more powerful than what he thought he was giving him, and he’d passed it on to Laura. Wed grunts, lowers his chin to his chest, frowns, then sits back and says, this could do it, and no he couldn’t help him. What he did in his own time is his own affair, of course.

Shadow asks, what’s this supposed to mean, Wed replying, it meant he can’t stop him from hunting eagle stones or thunderbirds, but would infinitely prefer he spent his days quietly sequestered in Lakeside, out of sight and he hopes, out of mind. When things get hairy we’ll need all hands to the wheel. Wed looks very old as he says this, and fragile, his skin seeming almost transparent, and the flesh beneath gray. Shadow wanted very much to reach out and put his hand over Wed’s gray hand, and tell him everything would be ok, something Shadow didn’t feel, but knew had to be said.

There were men in black trains out there, fat kid in a stretch limo, and people in the TV who didn’t mean them well. He doesn’t touch Wed or say anything, later wondering if he could’ve changed things, if this gesture would’ve done any good, if it could’ve averted any harm which was to come. He told himself it wouldn’t he knew it wouldn’t, but still afterward, wished just for a moment on this slow flight home, he’d touched Wed’s hand. The brief winter daylight was already fading when Wed drops Shadow outside his apartment.

The freezing temperature when he opens the car door feeling even more science fiction when compared to Vegas. Wed says, don’t get into any trouble, keep his head below the parapet, make no waves. Shadow asks, all at the same time? Wed replying, don’t get smart with him, m’boy.

He can keep out of sight in Lakeside, he pulled in a big favor to keep him here, safe and sound, if he were in a city they’d get his scent in minutes. Shadow replies, he’ll stay put and keep out of trouble, he meaning it as he said it, having a lifetime of trouble and ready to let it go forever, then asking, when’s he coming back? Wed replies, soon, then gunning the Lincoln’s engine, slid the window up and drove off into the frigid night. 3 cold days pass, the thermometer never making it up to the 0 mark, not even at midday.

Shadow wonders how people had survived this weather in the days before electricity, before thermal face masks and lightweight thermal underwear, before easy travel. He was down at the Video, Tanning, Bait, and Tackle store, being shown Hinzelmann’s hand-tied trout flies. They were more interesting than he’d expected, colorful fakes of life, made of feather and thread, each with a hook hidden inside it. Shadow asks Hinzelmann, he replying, for real?

Shadow confirms, for real, Hinzelmann responding, well, sometimes they didn’t survive it and they died. Leaky chimneys and badly ventilated stoves and ranges killed as many people as the cold, but those days were hard - they’d spend the summer and the fall buying up the food and the firewood for the winter. The worst thing of all was the madness, he heard on the radio, they were saying how it was to do with the sunlight, how there isn’t enough of it in the winter. His daddy said folk just went stir-crazy-winter madness they called it.

Lakeside always had it easy, but some of the other towns around here, they had it hard. There was a saying still had currency when he was a kid, if the serving girl hadn’t tried to kill him by Feb she hadn’t any backbone. Storybooks were like gold-dust - anything one could read was treasured, back before the town had a lending library. When his grampaw got sent a storybook from his bro in Bavaria, all the Germans in town met up in the town hall to hear him read it, and the Finns and Irish and the rest of them, they’d make the Germans tell them the stories.

20 miles south of here, in Jibway, they found a woman walking mother-naked in the winter with a dead babe at her breast, and she’d not suffer them to take it from her. He shook his head meditatively, closed the fly cabinet with a click, and says, bad business, he want a video rental card? Eventually we’ll open a Blockbuster here, and then we’ll soon be out of business, but for now we have a pretty fair selection. Shadow reminds Hinzelmann he had no TV or VCR, he enjoying his company, the reminiscences, tall tales, and goblin grin of the old man.

It could make things awkward between them were Shadow to admit TV had made him uncomfortable ever since it’d started to talk to him. Hinzelmann fishes in a drawer and takes out a tin box - by the look of it, having used to be a Xmas Box, of the type which contains chocolates or cookies: a mottled Santa Claus, holding a tray of Coca-Cola bottles, beamed up from its lid. Hinzelmann eased off the metal lid, revealing a notebook and back of blank tickets, and says, how many he want him to put him down for? Shadow asks, how many of what?

Hinzelmann replies, Klunker tickets, she’ll go out onto the ice today, so we’ve started selling tickets, each $10, 5 for $40, 10 for $75. One ticket buys 5 minutes, of course we can’t promise it’ll go down in his 5 minutes, but the person who’s closest stands to win 500 bucks, and if it goes down in his 5 minutes, he wins a grand. The earlier he buys his tickets, the more times aren’t spoken for, he want to see the info sheet? Shadow agrees, sure.

Hinzelmann hands Shadow a photocopy sheet, the klunker an old car with its engine and fuel tank removed, which is parked out on the ice for the winter. Sometimes in the spring the lake ice would melt, and when it was too think to bear the car’s weight it’d fall into the lake. The earliest the klunker had ever tumbled in the lake was Feb 27th (the winter ‘98, he doesn’t rightly think he could call this a winter at all), the latest being May 1st (this ‘50, seemed this year the only way this winter would end was if someone hammered a stake through its heart). The start of April appeared to be the most common time for the car to sink - normally mid-noon.

All of the mid-noons in April had already gone, marked off in Hinzelmann’s lined notebook, Shadow buys a 25 minute period on the morning of March 23rd, 9am-9:25am, handing Hinzelmann $40. Hinzelmann states, he just wished everybody in town was as easy to sell as he is. Shadow replies, it’s a thank you for the ride he gave him the first night he was in town. Hinzelmann states, no Mike, it’s for the children, for a moment looking serious, with no trace of impishness on his creased old face, continuing, come down this afternoon, he can lend a hand pushing the klunker out onto the lake.

He passes Shadow 5 blue cards, each with a date and time written on it in Hinzelmann’s old-fashioned handwriting, then entered the details of each in his notebook. Shadow asks, Hinzelmann, has he every heard of eagle stones? He replies, up north of Rhinelander? Nope, this is Eagle River. Can’t say he has, Shadow then asks, how about thunderbirds?

Hinzelmann responds, well there was Thunderbird Framing Gallery up on 5th St, but it closed down, he’s not helping, is he? Shadow replies, nope. Hinzelmann responds, tell him what, why doesn’t he go look at the library. Good people, although they may be kind of distracted by the library sale on this week. He showed him where the library was, didn’t he?

Shadow nods and says so long, wishing he’d thought of the library himself. He gets in the purple 4Runner and drives south on Main, following the lake around to the southernmost point, until he reached the castle-like blog which housed the city library. He walked inside, a sign pointing to the basement: LIBRARY SALE, it read. The library proper was on the ground floor, and he stamps the snow off his boots and went in.

A forbidding woman with purse, crimson-colored lips asks him pointedly if she could help him. Shadow replies, he supposed he needs a library card, and wanted to know all about thunderbirds. The woman has him fill out a form, then she tells him it’d take a week until he could be issued a card. Shadow wonders if they spent the week sending out inquiries to ensure he wasn’t wanted in any other libraries across America for failure to return library books.

He’d known a man in prison who had been imprisoned for stealing library books. Shadow says to the man when he’d told him why he was inside, sounds kind of rough. The man responds proudly, half a million dollar’s worth of books, his name was Gary McGuire, continuing, mostly rare and antique books from libraries and universities. They found a whole storage locker filled with books from floor to ceiling, open and shut case.

Shadow asks, why’d he take the, Gary gives the simple reply, he wanted them. Shadow says, Jesus, half a million dollar’s worth of books, Gary flashing him a grin, lowering his voice and saying, this was only in the storage locker they found. They never found the garage in San Clemente with the really good stuff in it. Gary’d died in prison, when what the infirmary had told him was only a malingering, feeling-lousy kind of day turned out to be a ruptured appendix.

Now, here in the Lakeside library, Shadow finds himself thinking about a garage in San Clemente with box after box of rare, strange and beautiful books in it rotting away, all of them browning and wilting and being eaten by mold and insects in the darkness, waiting for someone who’d never come to set them free. Native American Beliefs and Traditions was on a single shelf in one castle-like turret, Shadow pulling down some books and sitting in the window seat. In several minutes he’d learned thunderbirds were mythical gigantic birds who lived on mountaintops, brought the lightning and who flapped their wings to make the thunder. There were some tribes, he read, who believed the thunderbirds had made the world.

Another half hour’s reading didn’t turn up anything more, and he could find no mention of eagle stones anywhere in the books’ indexes. Shadow was putting the last of the books back on the shelf when he became aware of somebody staring at him. Someone small and grave peeking at him from around the heavy shelves. As he turned to look, the face vanished, turning his back on the boy, then glances around to see he was being watched once more.

In his pocket was the Liberty dollar, taking it out, he holds it up in his right hand, making sure the boy could see it. He finger-palms it into his left hand, displaying both hands empty, raised his left hand to his mouth and coughs once, letting the coin tumble from his left hand into his right. The boy looked at him wide-eyed and scampers away, returning a few moment’s later, dragging an unsmiling Marguerite Olsen, who looked at Shadow suspiciously and said, hello, Mr. Ainsel, Leon says he was doing magic for him. Shadow replies, only a little prestidigitation (performance of magic or conjuring tricks with hands), ma’am.

She states, please don’t, Shadow replying, he’s sorry, he was only trying to entertain him. She shakes her head, tautly, implying, drop it, so he does, next saying, he never had said thank you for her advice about heating the apartment, it’s warm as toast in there right now. Her icy expression hadn’t started to thaw as she replies, this is good. Shadow stating, it’s a lovely library, she responding, it’s a beautiful building, but the city needs something more efficient and less beautiful, he going to the library sale downstairs?

Shadow states, he wasn’t planning on it, she saying, well, he should, it’s for a good cause, making money for new books, cleans out shelf space, and it’s raising money to put in computers for the children’s section, but the sooner we get a whole new library built, the better. Shadow says, he’ll make a point of getting down there, she saying, head out into the hall and then go downstairs, good seeing him, Mr. Ainsel. Shadow replies, call him Mike, she saying nothing, only taking Leon’s hand and walking the boy over to the children’s section. Shadow hears Leon say, but Mom, it wasn’t pressed igitation. It wasn’t. He saw it vanish and then it fell out of his nose. He saw it.

Shadow walks down the marble and oak steps to the library basement, away from an oil portrait of Abe Lincoln gazing down from the wall at him. He goes through a door into a large room filled with tables, each one covered with books of all kinds, indiscriminately assorted and promiscuously arranged: paperbacks and hardcovers, fiction and nonfiction, periodicals and encyclopedias all side by side upon tables, spines up and out. Shadow wanders to the back of the room where there’s a table covered with old-looking leather-bound books, each with a library catalog # painted in white on the spine. The man sitting by the stack of empty boxes and bags, and the small, open, metal cashbox says, he’s the first person over in this corner all day, mostly folk only take the thrillers and children’s books and Harlequin Romances.

The man was reading Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, then continues, everything on tables are 50 cents per book or 3 for a dollar. Shadow thanks him and continues browsing, finding Herodotus’ Histories bound in peeling brown leather reminding him of the paperback he left in prison. There was a book called Perplexing Parlour Illusions, which looked like it may have some coin effects, carrying both to the man with the cashbox, where he reminds, buy one more, it’s a dollar, and if he took another book away, he’ll be doing them a favor, we need the shelf space. Shadow returns to the old leather-bound books deciding to liberate the book least likely to be bought by anyone else, and found himself unable to decide between Common Diseases of the Urinary Tract with Illustrations and Minutes of the Lakeside City Council 1872-1884.

He looks at the illustrations in the medical book and decides somewhere in the town was a teen boy who could use the book to gross out his friends. He took the Minutes to the man on the door, who took his dollar and put all his books in a Dave’s Finest Food brown paper sack. Shadow left the library with a clear view of the lake, all the way to the northeastern corner. He could even see his apartment building, a small brown box on the bank up past the bridge, and there were men on the ice near the bridge, 4 or 5 of them, pushing a dark green car into the center of the white lake.

Mar. 23rd, Shadow says to the lake, under his break, 9am-9:25am, he wondering if the lake or the klunker could hear him - and if they’d pay any attention to him even if they could. He doubted it, in Shadow’s world, luck, the good kind, was something other people had, not him. The wind blew bitter against his face, Chad waiting outside Shadow’s apartment when he got back. Shadow’s heart starts to pound when he saw the police car, then relax a little when he observed the co doing paperwork in the front seat.

He walks over to the car, carrying his paper sack of books. Chad lowers his window and asks, library sale? Shadow agrees, yes, Chad commenting, he bought a box of Robert Ludlum books there 2 or 3 years back, keeps meaning to read them. His cousin swears by the guy, these days he figures if he ever got marooned on a desert island and had his box of Ludlum books with him, he can catch up on his reading.

Shadow asks, something particular he could do for him, Chief? Chad replies, not a damn thing, pal, thought he’d stop by and see how he was settling in. He remember the Chinese saying, ‘You save a man’s life, you’re responsible for him‘? Well, he’s not saying he saved his life last week, but he still thought he should check in.

How’s Gunter’s purple mobile doing, Shadow replying, good, it’s good, running fine. Chad responds, pleased to hear it, Shadow stating, he saw his next-door neighbor in the library, Miz Olsen, he was wondering… Chad finishes, what crawled up her butt and died? Shadow states, if he wants to put it like this.

Chad states, long story, he want to ride along for a spell, he’ll tell him all about it. Shadow thinks about it for a moment, then says, ok, getting in the car and sitting in the front passenger seat, Chad driving north of town. Then he turns off his lights and parks beside the road, starting, Darren Olsen met Marge at UW Stevens Point and he brought her back north to Lakeside, she was a journalism major and he was studying, shit, hotel management or something like this. When they got here, jaws dropped, this 13, 14 years ago, she was beautiful… the black hair…, he pauses, then says, Darren managed the Motel America in Camden 20 miles west of here.

Except nobody ever seems to want to stop in Camden and eventually the motel closes, they had 2 boys. At the time Sandy was 11, the little one - Leon is it? - was only a babe in arms. Darren Olsen wasn’t a brave man, he’d been a good high school football player, but this was the last time he was flying high, whatever. He couldn’t find the courage to tell Margie he’d lost his job, so for a month, maybe 2, he’d drive off early in the morning, come home late in the evening complaining about the hard day he’d had at the motel.

Shadow asks, what was he doing? Chad replies, mm, couldn’t say for certain, he reckons he was driving up to Ironwood, maybe down to Green Bay. Guess he started out as a job hunter, pretty soon he was drinking the time away, getting stoned, more than probably meeting the occasional working girl for a little instant gratification. He could’ve been gambling, what he did know for certain is he emptied out their joint account in about 10 weeks.

It was only a matter of time before Margie figured out - there we go! He swings the car out, flicked on the siren and lights, and scares the daylights out of a small man with Iowa plates who’d just come down the hill at 70. The rogue Iowan ticketed, Chad returns to his story, where was he? Ok, so Margie kicks him out, sues for divorce, it turns into a vicious custody battle, this is what they call ‘em when they get in to People magazine.

Vicious Custody Battle, always makes him think of lawyers with knives and assault weapons, and brass knuckles. She got the kids, Darren got visitation and precious little else, now, back then Leon was pretty small. Sandy was older, a good kid, the kind of boy who worships his daddy, wouldn’t let Margie say nothing bad about him. They lost the house - had a nice place down on Daniel’s Rd, she moved into the apartments, he left town, came back every few months to make everybody miserable.

This went on for a few years, he’d come back, spend money on the kids, leave Margie in tears. Most of them only started wishing he’d never come back at all, his mom and pop move to FL when they retired, said they couldn’t take another Wisconsin winter. So last year he comes out, says he wants to take the boys to FL for Xmas, Margie said not a hope, told him to get lost, it got pretty unpleasant - at one point he had to go over there. Domestic dispute, by the time he got there Darren was standing in the front yard shouting stuff, the boys barely holding it together, Margie crying.

Chad continues, he told Darren he was shaping up for a night in the cells, he though for a moment he was going to hit him, but was sober enough not to do this. He gives him a ride down to the trailer park south of town, told him to shape up, he’d hurt her enough… Next day he left town, 2 weeks later, Sandy vanishes. Didn’t get onto the school bus, told his best friend he’d be seeing his dad soon, Darren was bringing him a specially cool present to make up for having missed Xmas in FL.

Nobody’s seen him since, non-custodial kidnappings are the hardest, it’s tough to find a kid who doesn’t want to be found, y’see? Shadow states he did, and saw something else as well, Chad was in love with Marguerite himself, wondering if the man knew how obvious it was. Chad pulls out once more, lights flashing and pulled over some teens doing 60, he didn’t ticket them, just put the fear of God in them. This evening Shadow sits at the kitchen table trying to figure out how to transform a silver dollar into a penny.

It was a trick he’d found in his new book, but the instructions were infuriating, unhelpful, and vague, phrases like, then vanish the penny in the usual way, occurred every sentence or so. In this context, Shadow wondered, what was ‘the usual way‘? A French drop? Sleeving it?

Shouting ‘Oh my god, look out - a mountain lion!‘ and dropping the coin into his side pocket while the audience’s attentions diverted? He tosses his silver dollar in the air, catches it, remembers the moon and the woman who gave it to him, then attempts the illusion. It didn’t seem to work, he walks into the bathroom and tries it in front of the mirror, and confirms he’s right, the trick as written simply didn’t work. He sighs, drops the coins in his pocket and sits down on the couch, spreading the cheap throw rug over his legs, flipping open the Minutes of the Lakeside Council 1872-1884.

The type, in 2 columns, was so small as to be almost unreadable, flipping through the book, looking at the reproductions of the photos of the period, at the several incarnations of the Lakeside city council therein: long side-whiskers and clay pipes and battered hats, worn with faces which were, many of them, peculiarly familiar. He was unsurprised to see the portly secretary of the 1882 city council was a Patrick Mulligan: shave him, make him lose 20 lbs and he’d be a dead ringer for Chat, his - what, great-great-grandson? He wondered if Hinzelmann’s pioneer grandfather was in the photos, but it didn’t appear he’d been city council material. Shadow thought he’d seen reference to a Hinzelmann in the text, while flipping from photo to photo, but it eluded him when he leafed back for it, and the tiny type made Shadow’s eyes ache.

He put the book down on his chest and realized his head was nodding, it’d be foolish to fall asleep on the couch, he decided soberly. The bedroom was only a few feet away, on the other hand, the bedroom and bed would still be there in 5 minutes, and anyway, he wasn’t going to go to sleep, only close his eyes for a moment. Darkness roared, he stood on an open plain, beside him was the place from which he’d once emerged, from which the earth had squeezed him. Stars were still falling from the sky and each star which touched the red earth became a man or woman.

The men had long black hair, and high cheekbones, the woman all looked like Marguerite, these were star people, they looked at him with dark proud eyes. Shadow says, tell him about the thunderbirds, please, it’s not for him, it’s for his wife. One by one they turned their backs on him, and as he lost their faces they were gone, one with the landscape, but the last one of them, her hair streaked white on dark gray, pointed before she turned away, pointed into the wine-colored sky. She says, ask them himself, summer lightning flickering, momentarily illuminating the landscape from horizon to horizon.

There were high rocks near him, peaks and spires of sandstone, and Shadow started to climb the nearest, the spire the color of old ivory. He grabs at a handhold, and felt it slice into his hand. Shadow thinks, it’s bone, not stone, old dry bone, but it was a dream, and in dreams, sometimes, there’s no choices: either there are no decisions to be made, or they were made for the dreamer long before ever the dream began. Shadow continues to climb, pulling himself up, his hands hurt, bone popped and crushed and fragmented under his bare feet, cutting them painfully.

The wind tugged at him and pressed himself to the spire, and continues to climb the tower. It was made of only one kind of bone, he realized, repeated over and over, each bone dry and ball-like. For a moment he imagined they could be old yellow shells or eggs of some dreadful bird, but another flare of lightning told him differently: they had holes for eyes, and they had teeth, which grinned without humor. Somewhere birds were calling, rain spattering his face.

He was hundreds of feet above the ground, clinging to the side of the tower of skulls, while flashes of lightning burned in the wings of the shadowy birds who circled the spire - enormous black, condor-like birds, each with a ruff of white at its neck. They were huge, graceful, awful birds, and the beats of their wings crashed like thunder on the night air, as they circled the spire. Shadow thought, they must be 15, 20 feet from wingtip to wingtip. He pushes himself into a crevice of skulls, hollow eye-holes staring at him, a clutter of ivory teeth smiling at him, but he continuing to climb, pulling himself up the mountain of skulls.

Every sharp edge cuts into his skin, feeling revulsion and terror and awe. Another bird comes at him, and one hand-sized talon sinks into his arm, he reaching out and trying to grasp a feather from its wing. If he returns to his tribe without a thunderbird’s feather he’d be disgraced, he’d never be a man, but the bird pulled up, so he couldn’t grasp even one feather. The thunderbird loosened its grip and swung back onto the wind.

Shadow continues to climb as he thinks, there must be a thousand skulls, a thousand thousand, and not all of them human. He stood at last on the top of the spire, the great birds, the thunderbirds, circling him slowly, navigating the gusts of the storm with tiny flicks of their wings. He heard a voice, the voice of the buffalo man, calling to him on the wind, telling him who the skulls belonged to…. The tower started to tumble, and the biggest bird, its eyes blinding blue-white of forked lightning, plummeted down toward him in a rush of thunder, and Shadow was falling, tumbling down the tower of skulls…

The phone shrilled, Shadow not even knowing it was connected, groggy and shaken, he picks up. Wed shouts, what the fuck, angrier than Shadow’d ever heard him, what the almighty flying fuck did he think he’s playing at? Shadow stupidly stares into the receiver saying, he was asleep. Wed asks, what did he think is the fucking point of stashing him in a hiding place like Lakeside, if he’s going to raise such a ruckus not even a dead man could miss?

Shadow replies, he dreamed of thunderbirds… and a tower. Skulls… it seemed to him important to recount his dream. Wed responds, he knew what he was dreaming, everybody damn well knows what he was dreaming. Christ almighty, what’s the point in hiding him, if he’s going to start to fucking advertise?

Shadow doesn’t respond, there’s a pause at the other end of the phone, then Wed states, he’ll be there in the morning, it sounding like the anger’d died down, continuing, we’re going to San Francisco, the flowers in his hair being optional, and the line went dead. Shadow puts the phone on the carpet, and sits up stiffly, it’s 6am and still night-dark outside. He gets up from the sofa, shivering, hearing the wind as it screamed across the frozen lake, and he could hear somebody nearby crying, only the thickness of a wall away. He was certain it was Marguerite, and her sobbing was insistent, low, and heartbreaking.

Shadow walks into the bathroom and pisses, then goes into his bedroom and closes the door, blocking off the sound of the crying woman. Outside the wind howled and wailed as if it too was seeking for a lost child, and he slept no more this night. San Francisco in January is unseasonably warm, enough the sweat prickled on the back of Shadow’s neck. Wed was wearing a deep blue suit, and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, which made him look like an entertainment lawyer.

They were walking along Haight St, the start people and hustlers and moochers watching them go by, and no one shook a paper cup of change at them, no one asked them for anything at all. Wed’s jaw is set, Shadow seeing immediately he was still angry, and had asked no questions when the black Lincoln town car had pulled up outside the apartment this morning. They hadn’t talked on the way to the airport, he relieved Wed was in first class and he was back in coach. Now it was late noon, Shadow, who hadn’t been in San Francisco, since he was a boy, who had only seen it since then as a background to movies, was astonished at how familiar it was, how colorful and unique the wooden houses, how steep the hills, how very much it didn’t feel like anywhere else.

Shadow states, it’s almost hard to believe this is in the same country as Lakeside. Wed glares at him, then says, it’s not, San Francisco isn’t in the same country as Lakeside anymore than New Orleans is in the same country as NY or Miami is in the same country as Minneapolis. Shadow responds mildly, is this so? Wed replies, indeed it is, they may share certain cultural signifiers - money, a federal government, entertainment; it’s the same land, obviously - but the only things which give it the illusion of being one country are the greenback, The Tonight Show, McDonald’s.

They were approaching a park at the end of the road, Wed instructing, be nice to the lady we’re visiting, but not too nice. Shadow replies, he’ll be cool, they stepping onto the grass, a young girl no older than 14, hair dyed green, orange, and pink staring at them as they go by. She sits beside a mongrel dog with a piece of string for a collar and a leash. She looked hungrier than the dog did, it yapping at them, then wagging its tail.

Shadow gives the girl a dollar, she staring at it as if she wasn’t sure what it was, Shadow suggesting, buy dog food with it, she nodding and smiling. Wed states, let him put it bluntly, he must be very cautious around the lady we’re visiting, she may take a fancy to him, and this would be bad. Shadow asks, is she his girlfriend or something, Wed replies agreeably, not for all the little plastic toys in China, his anger seeming to have dissipated or perhaps to have been invested for the future. Shadow suspects anger was the engine which made Wed run.

There was a woman sitting on the grass, under a tree, with a paper tablecloth spread in front of her, and a variety of Tupperware dishes on the cloth. She was - not fat, no, far from fat: what she was, a word Shadow had never had cause to use until now, was curvaceous. Her hair was so fair it was white, the kind of platinum-blonde tresses which should have belonged to a long-dead movie starlet, her lips were painted crimson, and she looked to be somewhere between 25 and 50. As they reached her she was selecting from a plate of deviled eggs.

She looks up as Wed approaches her, and puts down the egg she’d chosen, and wipes her hand, saying, hello, you old fraud, but smiles as she says it. Wed bows low, taking her hand and raising it to his lips. Wed responds, she looks divine, she demanding sweetly, how the hell else should she look? Anyway, he’s a liar, New Orleans was such a mistake - she put on, what, 30 lbs there? She swears. She knew she’d leave when she started to waddle. The tops of her thighs rub together when she walks now, can he believe this?

Shadow was being addressed for the last of this, he having no idea what to say in reply, and felt a hot flush suffuse his face. The woman laughs delightedly, she saying, he’s blushing! Wed her sweet, he brought her a blusher, how perfectly wonderful of him. What’s he called? Wed supplying, this is Shadow, seeming to enjoy Shadow’s discomfort and introducing, Shadow, say hello to Easter.

Shadow says something which might’ve been hello, and the woman smiles at him again. He felt like he was caught in headlights - the blinding kind which poachers use to freeze deer before they shoot them. He could smell her perfume from where he was standing, an intoxicating mixture of jasmine and honeysuckle, of sweet milk and female skin. Wed asks, so, how’s tricks?

Easter laughs a deep and throaty laugh, full-bodied and joyous. How could one not like someone who laughed like this? She says, everything’s fine; how about him, old wolf? Wed replies, he was hoping to enlist her assistance, she stating, wasting his time.

Wed replies, at least hear him out before dismissing him. She maintains, no point, don’t even bother, looking at Shadow and says, please, sit down here and help yourself to some of this food. Here, take a plate and pile it hight, it’s all good, eggs, roast chicken, chicken curry, chicken salad, and over here is lapin - rabbit, actually, but cold rabbit is a delight, and in this bowl over there is the jugged hare, well, why doesn’t she just fill a plate for him?, and she does, taking a plastic plate and piling it high with foods and passing it to him. Then she looks at Wed and asks, is he eating?

Wed states, he’s at her disposal, my dear, she replying, he’s so full of shit it’s a wonder his eyes don’t turn brown. She passes him an empty plate, saying, help himself. The noon sun at her back burned her hair into a platinum aura, saying as she chewed a chicken leg with gusto, Shadow, a sweet name, why do they call him Shadow? Shadow licks his lips to moisten them and replies, when he was a kid, we lived, his mother and he, we were, he means, she was, well, like a secretary at a bunch of U.S. embassies, we went from city to city all over Northern Europe.

Then she got sick and had to take early retirement and we came back to the states. He never knew what to say to the other kids, so he’d just find adults and follow them around, not saying anything. He just needed the company, he guessed, he doesn’t know, he was a small kid. She responds, he grew, Shadow agreeing, yes, he grew.

She turns back to Wed, who was spooning down a bowl of what looked like cold gumbo, and asks, is this the boy who’s got everybody so upset? Wed asks, she heard? She replies, she keeps her ears pricked up, then to Shadow, he should keep out of their way. There are too many secret societies out there, and they have no loyalties and no love, commercial, independent, government, they’re all in the same boat.

They range from the barely competent to the deeply dangerous. Hey, old wolf, she heard a joke he’d like the other day. How does he know the CIA wasn’t involved in the Kennedy assassination? Wed replies, he’s heard it, she responding, pity.

She turns her attention back to Shadow, and says, but the spookshow, the one’s he met, they’re something else. They exist since everyone knows they must exist, she draining a paper cup of something which looked like white wine, and then she gets to her feet. She says, Shadow’s a good name. She wants a mochaccino, come on.

She starts to walk away, Wed asks, what about the food? She can’t just leave it here. She smiles at him, and points to the girl sitting by the dog, and then extended her arms to take in the Haight and the world, saying, let it feed them, and walks, with Wed and Shadow trailing behind her. She says to Wed as they walked, remember, she’s rich.

She’s doing just peachy, why should she help him? He replies, she’s one of them, she’s as forgotten and unloved and unremembered as any of them. It’s pretty clear whose side she should be on. They reached a sidewalk coffeehouse, went inside, only one waitress, who wore her eyebrow ring a mark of castle and a woman making coffee behind the counter.

The waitress advances upon them, smiling automatically, sat them down, took their orders. Easter put her slim hand on the back of Wed’s square gray hand, and says, she’s telling him, she’s doing fine. On her festival days they still feast on eggs and rabbits, on candy and on flesh, to represent rebirth and copulation. They wear flowers in their bonnets and give each other flowers, and do it in her name.

More and more of them every year, in her name, old wolf, he replying drily and she waxes fat and affluence on their worship and love? Easter responds, don’t be an asshole, suddenly sounding very tired and sipping her mochaccino. Wed says, serious question, m’dear. Certainly he’d agree millions upon millions of them give each other tokens in her name, and they still practice all the rites of her festival, even down to hunting for hidden eggs, but how many of them know who she is? Eh? Excuse him, miss?

This to the waitress, she replying, he need another expresso? He replies, no my dear, he was wondering if she could solve a little argument we’re having over here. His friend and he were disagreeing over what the word ‘Easter‘ means, would she happen to know? The girl stares at him as if green toads had started to push there way between his lips, then says, she doesn’t know about any of this Christian stuff, she’s a pagan.

The woman behind the counter adds, she thinks it’s like Latin or something for ‘Christ has risen‘ maybe. Wed asks, really? The woman responds, yeah, sure. Easter, just like the sun rises in the east, y’know. Wed replies, the risen son. Of course, a most logical supposition, the woman smiles, and returns to her coffee grinder.

Wed looks up at their waitress and says, he thinks he shall have another espresso, if she doesn’t mind, and tell him, pagan, who does she worship? She asks, worship? Wed replies, this is right, he imagines she must have a pretty wide-open field, so to who does she set up her household altar? To who does she bow down? To woman does she pray at dawn and dusk?

Her lips described several shapes without saying anything before she says, the female principle, it’s an empowerment thing. You know. Wed replies, indeed, and this female principle of hers, does she have a name? The girl with the eyebrow ring responds, she’s the goddess within them all, color rising to her cheek and continuing, she doesn’t need a name.

Wed responds with a wide monkey grin, ah, so does she have mighty bacchanals (reference to Bacchus Roman god of wine) in her honor? Does she drink blood wine under the full moon, while scarlet candles burn in silver candleholders? Does she step naked into the sea-form, chanting ecstatically to her nameless goddess while the waves lick at her legs, lapping her thighs like the tongues of a thousand leopards? She responds, he’s making fun of her, we don’t do any of this stuff he was saying, she takes a deep breath.

Shadow suspects she was counting to 10, then she asks, anymore coffees here? Another mochaccino for her, ma’am? Her smile was a lot like the one she’d greeted them with when they’d entered. They shook their heads, and the waitress turns to greet another customer.

Wed states, there’s one who doesn’t have the faith and won’t have the fun. Chesterton. Pagan indeed. So, shall we go out onto the street, Easter m’dear, and repeat the exercise? Find out how many passers - have know their Easter festival takes its name from Eostre of the dawn?

Let’s see - he’s got it, we’ll ask one hundred people, for every one which knows the truth, she may cut off one of his fingers and when he runs out of them, toes, for every 20 who don’t know, she spends a night making love to him and the odds are certainly in her favor here - this San Francisco, after all. There are heathens, pagans, and Wiccans aplenty on these precipitous streets. Her green eyes looked at Wed, and Shadow decides, they were the exact same color as a leaf in spring with the sun shining through it, she saying nothing. Wed continues, we could try it, but he’d end up with 10 fingers and toes, and 5 nights in her bed, so don’t tell him they worship her and keep her festival day.

They mouth her name, but it has no meaning to them, nothing at all. Tears stood out in her eyes, she replying quietly, she knew this, she not a fool. Wed responds, no, she’s not, Shadow thinking, he’s pushed her too far, Wed looking down, ashamed, he saying, he’s sorry. Shadow hears the real sincerity in his voice, Wed continuing, we need her, we need her energy, we need her power.

Will she fight beside them when the storm comes? She hesitates, she had a chain of blue forget-me-nots tattooed around her left wrist. She replies, yes, after awhile, she guesses she will. Wed kisses his finger and touches it to her cheek, then calls their waitress over and pays for their coffees, counting out the money carefully, folding it over with the check and presenting it to her.

As she walks away, Shadow says, ma’am? Excuse him? He thinks she drops this, he picking up a 10 dollar bill from the floor. She replying, no, looking at the wrapped bills in her hand, Shadow politely saying, he saw it fall, ma’am, she should count them. She counts the money in her hand, looked puzzled and said, Jesus, he’s right, she’s sorry.

She takes the $10 from Shadow and walks away, Easter walking out onto the sidewalk with them. The light was just starting to fade, she nodding to Wed, then touches Shadow’s hand and says, what did he dream about last night? He replies, thunderbirds, a mountain of skulls. She nods, and says, and does he know whose skulls they were? He replies, there was a voice in his dream, it told him, she nodding and waiting.

He continues, it said they were mine, old skulls of mine, thousands and thousands of them. She looks at Wed and says, she thinks this one’s a keeper, smiling her bright smile and patting Shadow’s arm, walking away down the sidewalk. He watches her go, trying and failing not to think of her thighs rubbing together as she walked. In the taxi on the way to the airport, Wed turns to Shadow and says, what the hell was this business with the $10 about?

Shadow replies, he shortchanged her, it comes out of her wages if she’s short. Wed asks, what the hell does he care?, seeming genuinely irate, Shadow thinking for a moment then saying, well, he wouldn’t want anyone to do it to him, she hadn’t done anything wrong. Wed asks, no?, staring off into the middle-distance and continuing, when she was 7 years old she shut a kitten in a closet, listening to it mew for several days, when it ceased mewing, she took it out and put it in a shoebox, burying it in the backyard, she wanting to bury something. She constantly steals from everywhere she working, small amounts usually.

Last year she visited her grandmother in the nursing home to which the old woman is confined, she taking an antique gold watch from her grandmother’s bedside table and then went prowling through several other of the rooms, stealing small quantities of money and personal effects from the twilight folk in their golden years. When she got home she didn’t know what to do with her spoils, scared someone would come after her, so she thew everything away except the cash. Shadow says, he gets the idea. Wed adds, she also has asymptomatic gonorrhea, suspecting she may be infected, but does nothing about it.

When her last boyfriend accused her of having given him a disease she was hurt and offended and refused to see him again. Shadow comments, this isn’t necessary, he saying he gets the idea, he can do this to anyone, can’t he? Tell him bad things about them. Wed agrees, of course, they all do the same things, they may think their sins are original, but for the most part they’re petty and repetitive.

Shadow asks, and this makes it ok for him to steal 10 bucks from her? Wed pays the taxi and they walk into the airport, wandering up to their gate, boarding not yet started. Wed asks, what the hell else can he do? They don’t sacrifice rams or bulls to him, they don’t send him souls of killers and slaves, gallows-hung and raven-picked.

They made him, they forgot him, now he takes a little back from them, isn’t this fair? Shadow replies, his mom used to say, ‘Life isn’t fair‘. Wed states, of course she did, it’s one of those things moms say, right up there with, ‘if your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?‘. Shadow doggedly says, he stiffed this girl for 10 bucks, he slipped her 10 bucks, it was the right thing to do and he did it.

Someone announces their plane was boarding, Wed standing, and once again sounding sincere says, may his choices always be so clear. Shadow thinks, it’s true what they say, if one can fake sincerity, one’s got it made. The cold snap was easing when Wed drops Shadow off in the small hours of the morning. It was still obscenely cold in Lakeside, but it was no longer impossibly cold.

The lighted sign on the side of the M&I Bank flashed alternately 3:30 am and -5℉ they drove through the town. It was 9:30 am when Chad knocks on the apartment door and asks Shadow if he knew a girl named Alison McGovern, Shadow sleepily replying, he didn’t think so. Chad says, this is her picture, it was a high school photo, Shadow recognizing the person in the picture immediately: the girl with the blue rubber-band braces on her teeth, the one who’d been learning all about the oral uses of Alka-Seltzter from her friend. Shadow states, oh yeah, ok, she was on the bus when he came into town.

Chad asks, where was he yesterday, Mr. Ainsel? Shadow felt his world start to spin away from him, he knowing he had nothing to feel guilty about (he’s a parole-violating felon living under an assumed name, whispered a calm voice in his mind, isn’t this enough?). Shadow replies, San Francisco, CA, helping his uncle transport a 4-poster bed. Chad asks, he got any way of proving it? Ticket stubs? Anything like this?

Shadow replies, sure, he had both his boarding passes. Chad continues, Alison vanished, she helping out up at the Lakeside Humane Society, feed animals, walk dogs, she’d come out for a few hours after school, one of those animal kids. So, Dolly Knopf, who runs the Humane Society, she’d always run her home when they closed up for the night, yesterday Alison never got there. Shadow repeats, she’s vanished.

Chad responds, yup, her parents called them last night, silly kid used to hitchhike up to the Humane Society, it’s out on County W, pretty isolated, her parents told her not to, but this isn’t the kind of place where things happen… people here don’t lock their doors, y’know? and we can’t tell kids. So, look at the photo again. Alison was smiling, the rubber bands on her teeth in the photo red, not blue. Chad continues, he can honestly say he didn’t kidnap her, raper her, murder her, anything like this? Shadow states, he was in San Francisco, and he wouldn’t do this shit.

Chad replies, this is what he figured, pal, so he want to come help them look for her? Shadow asks, him? Chad replies, him, we’ve had the K-9 guys out this morning - nothing so far, he sighing, heck, Mike, he just hopes she turns up in the Twin Cities with some dopey boyfriend. Shadow asks, he think it’s likely? Chad replies, he thinks it’s possible, he want to join the hunting party?

Shadow remembers seeing the girl in Henning’s Farm and Home Supplies, the flash of a shy blue-braced smile, how beautiful he’d known she was going to be one day and says, he’ll come. There were 2 dozen men and women waiting in the lobby of the fire station, Shadow recognizing Hinzelmann, and several others looking familiar. There were several police dressed in blue, and some men and women from the Lumber County sheriff’s dept. dressed in brown. Chad told them what Alison was wearing when she vanished (a scarlet snowsuit, green gloves, blue woolen hat under the hood of her snowsuit) and divided the volunteers into groups of 3.

Shadow, Hinzelmann, and a man named Brogan comprised one of the groups, they reminded how short the daylight period was, telling if, god forbid, they found Alison’s body they weren’t, repeat not to disturb anything, just to radio back for help, but if she was alive they were to keep her warm until help came. They were dropped off out on County W, the 3 walking along the edge of a frozen creek, each group of 3 being issued a small hand-held walkie talkie before they left. The cloud cover was low, and the world was gray, no snow having fallen in the last 36 hours. Footprints stood out in the glittering crust of the crisp snow.

Brogan looked like a retired army colonel, with his slim mustache and white temples. He drove them, told Shadow he was a retired high school principal saying, he took early retirement when he saw he wasn’t getting any younger, these days still teaching a little, do the school play - this always the high point of the year anyhow - and now he hunts a little and has a cabin down on Pike Lake, spends too much time there. As they set out Brogan says, on one hand, he hopes we find her, on the other, she she’s going to be found, he’d be very grateful if it was someone else who got to find her and not us, know what he means? Shadow knew exactly what he meant.

The 3 men didn’t talk much, they walked, looking for a red snowsuit or green gloves, or blue hat, or white body. Now and again Brogan, who had the walkie-talkie, would check in with Chad. At lunchtime they sat with the rest of the search party on a commandeered school bus and ate hot dogs and drank hot soup. Someone points out a red-tailed hawk in a bare tree, and someone else said it looked more like a falcon, but it flew away and the argument was abandoned.

Hinzelmann told them a story about his grandfather’s trumpet, and how he tried playing it during a cold snap, and the weather was so cold outside by the barn, where his grandfather had gone to practice, no music came out. Then after he came inside he put the trumpet down by the wood stove to thaw. Well, the family are all in bed this night and suddenly the unfrozen tunes start coming out of this trumpet. Scared his grandmother so much she nearly had kittens.

The afternoon was endless, unfruitful, and depressing, the daylight fading slowly: distances collapsed and the world turned indigo and the wind blew cold enough to burn the skin on his face. When it was too dark to continue, Chad radioed to them to call it off for the evening, and they were picked up and driven back to the fire station. In the block next to the fire station was the Buck Stops Here Tavern, and this was where most of the searchers wound up. They were exhausted and dispirited, talking to each other of the bald eagle which had circled them, how cold it’d become, how more than likely Alison would show up in a day or so, no idea of how much trouble she’d caused everyone.

Brogan says, he shouldn’t think badly of the town due to this, it is a good town. A trim woman whose name Shadow forgot if they ever had been introduced says, Lakeside is the best town in the Northwoods. Does he know how many people are unemployed in Lakeside? Shadow states, no.

She responds, less than 20, there’s over 5k people live on or around this town. We may not be rich, but everyone’s working, it’s not like the mining towns up in the Northeast - most of them are ghost towns now. There were farming towns which were killed by the falling cost of milk, or the low price of hogs, he know what the biggest cause of natural death is among farmers in the Midwest? Shadow hazards, suicide?

She looks almost disappointed, confirming, yeah, this is right, they kill themselves, shaking her head. Then she continues, there are too many towns here abouts which only exist for the hunters, and vacationers, towns which just take their money and send them home with their trophies and bug bites. Then there are the company towns, where everything’s just hunky-dory until Wal-Mart relocates their distribution center or 3M stops manufacturing CD cases there or whatever and suddenly there’s a boatload of folks who can’t pay their mortgages. She says, she’s sorry, she didn’t catch his name, Shadow replying, Ainsel, Mike Ainsel, the beer he was drinking was a local brew, made with spring water, it was good.

She introduces herself, she’s Callie Knopf, Dolly’s sister, her face still ruddy from the cold, and continues, so what she’s saying is Lakeside’s lucky. We’ve got a little of everything here - farm, light industry, tourism, crafts, good schools. Shadow looks at her in puzzlement, there was something empty at the bottom of all her words. It was as if he was listening to a salesman, a good one, who believed in his product, but still wanted to make sure he went home with all the brushes or the full set of encyclopedias.

Perhaps she could see it in his face, saying, she’s sorry, when one loves something one just doesn’t want to stop talking about it, what does he do, Mr. Ainsel? Shadow responds, heavy lifting, his uncle buys and sells antiques all over the country and uses him to move big, heavy things. Without breaking them too badly, it’s a good job, but not steady work. A black cat, the bar mascot, wound between Shadow’s legs, rubbing its forehead on his boot, it leaping up beside him onto the bench and went to sleep.

Brogan states, at least he gets to travel, does he do anything else? Shadow asks, he got 8 quarters on him? Brogan fumbled for his change, found 5 quarters, pushed them across the table to Shadow. Callie Knopf produces another 3 and Shadow lays out the coins, 4 in each row, then with scarcely a fumble, he did the Coins Through the Table, appearing to drop half the coins through the wood of the table, from his left hand in to his right.

After this, he takes all 8 coins in his right hand, an empty water glass in his left, covered the glass with a napkin and appears to make the coins vanish one by one from his right hand and land in the glass beneath the napkin with an audible clink. Finally he opens his right hand to show it was empty, then swept the napkin away to show the coins in the glass. He returns their coins - 3 to Callie, 5 to Brogan - then took a quarter back from Brogan’s hand, leaving 4 coins. He blew on it, and it was a penny, which he gave to Brogan, who counts his quarters and was dumbfounded to find he still had all 5 in his hand.

Hinzelmann cackles in delight, he’s a Houdini, Shadow replying, he’s got a long way to go still, feeling a smidgen of pride, it had, he realized, been his first adult audience. He stops at the food store on the way home to buy a carton of milk, the ginger-haired girl on the checkout counter looking familiar, and her eyes red-rimmed from crying, her face one big freckly. Shadow says, he knew her, she’s - and he was about to say the Alka-Seltzer girl, but bit it back and finished, she’s Alison’s friend, from the bus, he hopes she’s going to be ok. She sniffs and nods, saying, her too, she blowing her nose on a tissue hard, and pushes it back into her sleeve.

Her badge said, HI! I’M SOPHIE! ASK ME HOW YOU CAN LOSE 20LBS IN 30 DAYS! Shadow says, he spent today looking for her, no luck yet. Sophie nodded, blinking back tears, waving the milk carton in front of a scanner and it chirping its price at them. Shadow passes her $2, Sophie suddenly saying in a choked voice, she’s leaving this fucking town, she’s going to live with her mom in Ashland.

Alison’s gone, Sandy Olsen went last year, Jo Ming the year before, what if it’s her next year? Shadow replies, he thought Sandy was taken by his father, Sophie saying bitterly, yes, she’s sure he was, and Jo Ming went out to CA, and Sarah Lindquist got lost on a trail hike and they never found her, whatever, she wants to go to Ashland. She takes a deep breath and held it for a moment, then smiles at him. There was nothing insincere about this smile, only the smile of someone who, knew it was her job to smile when she gave someone their change, and as she puts Shadow’s change and receipt in his hand she tells him to have a nice day.

Then she turns to the woman with the full shopping cart behind him and starts to unload-and-scan. A boy no older than Sophie saunters over to bag the groceries. Shadow takes his milk and drives away, past the gas station and the klunker on the ice, and over the bridge and home.

Coming to America 1778

There was a girl, and her uncle sold her, wrote Mr. Ibis in his perfect copperplate handwriting. This is the tale'; the rest is detail. There are stories which are true, in which each individual’s tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is we have heard it before, and we can’t allow ourselves to feel it too deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope.

This is how we walk and talk and function, day in, day out, immune to others’ pain and loss. If it were to touch us it’d cripple us or make saints of us, but for the most part, it doesn’t touch us, we can’t allow it to. Tonight as one eats, reflect if one can, there are children starving in the world, in numbers larger than the mind can easily hold, up in the big numbers where an error of a million here and there can be forgiven. It may be uncomfortable for one to reflect upon this or it may not, but still, one will eat.

There are accounts which, if we open our hearts to them, will cut us too deeply. Look - here’s a good man, by his own lights and the lights of his friends: faithful and true to his wife, he adores and lavishes attention on his little children, he cares about his country, he does his job punctiliously, as best he can. So, efficiently and good-naturedly, he exterminates Jews: he appreciates the music which plays in the background to pacify them, he advising the Jews not to forget their ID numbers as they go into the showers - many people, he tells them, forget their numbers, and take the wrong clothes, when they come out of the showers.

This calms the Jews: there will be life, they assures themselves, after the showers, and they’re wrong. Our man supervises the detail taking the bodies to the ovens, and if there is anything he feels bad about, it’s he still allows the gassing of vermin to affect him. Were he a truly good man, you know, he’d feel nothing but joy, as the earth is cleansed of its pests. Leave him, he cuts too deep, he’s too close to us and it hurts.

There was a girl, and her uncle sold her. Put like this is seems so simple. No man is an island, proclaims Donne, and he was wrong. If we’re not islands, we’d be lost, drowned in each other’s tragedies, we’re insulated (a word which means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our nature, and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories.

We know the shape, and the shape doesn’t change, there was a human being who was born, lived, and then, by some means or other died. There, one may fill in the details from one’s own experience, as inoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes - unique in detail, forming patterns we’re seen before, but as like one another as peas in a pod (and has one ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There’s not a chance one’d mistake one for another, after a minute’s close inspection).

We need individual stories, with individuals we see only numbers: a thousand dead, a hundred thousand dead, ‘casualties may rise to a million‘. With individual stories, the statistics become people - but event his is a lie, for the people continue to suffer in numbers which themselves are numbing and meaningless. Look, see the child’s swollen, swollen belly, and the flies which crawl at the corners of his eyes, his skeletal limbs: will it make it easier for one to know his name, age, dreams, fears? To see him from the inside, and if it does, are we not doing a disservice to his sister, who lies in the searing dust beside him, a distorted, distended caricature of a human child, and there, if we feel for them, are they now more important to us than a thousand other children touched by the same famine, a thousand other young lives who will soon be food for the flies’ own myriad squirming children? We draw our lines around these moments of pain and remain upon our islands, and they can’t hurt us.

They’re covered with a smooth, safe, nacreous (mother of pearl) layer to let them slip, pearl-like, from our souls without real pain. Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes, and then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives. A life, which is like any other, unlike any other, and the simple truth is this: there was a girl and her uncle sold her. This is what they used to say, where the girl came from: no man may be certain who fathered a child, but the mother, ah, this one could be certain of.

Lineage and property was something which moved in the matrilineal line, but power remained in the hands of the men: a man had complete ownership of his sister’s children. There was a war in this place, and it was a small war, no more than a skirmish between the men of 2 rival villages, almost an argument, one village winning the argument, one lost it. Life as a commodity, people as possessions, enslavement having been part of the culture of those parts for thousands of years. The Arab slavers had destroyed the last of the great kingdoms of East Africa, while the West African nations had destroyed each other.

There was nothing untoward or unusual about their uncle selling the twins, although twins were considered magical beings, and their uncle was scared of them enough he didn’t tell them they were to be sold in case they harmed his shadow and killed him. They were 12 years old, she was called Wututu, the messenger bird, he was called Agasu, the name of a dead king. They were healthy children, and since they were twins, male and female, they were told many things about the gods, and since they were twins they listened to the things they were told, and remembered. Their uncle was a fat and lazy man.

If he’d owned more cattle, perhaps he’d have given up one of his cattle instead of the children, but he didn’t. He sold the twins, enough of him: he shall not enter further into this narrative, we follow the twins. They were marched, with several other slaves taken or sold in the war, and for a dozen miles to a small outpost. Here they were traded, and the twins, along with 13 others, were bought by 6 men with spears and knives who marched them to the west, toward the sea, and then for many miles along the coast.

There were 15 slaves now altogether, their hands loosely bound, tied neck to neck. Wututu asks her brother Agasu what’d happen to them, he replying, he doesn’t know. Agasu was a boy who smiled often: his teeth white and perfect, showing them as he grinned, his happy smiles making Wututu happy in her turn. He wasn’t smiling now, instead he tried to show bravery for his sister, his head back and shoulders spread, as proud, as menacing, as comical as a puppy with its hackles raised.

The man in the line behind Wututu, his cheeks scarred, says, they’ll sell us to the white devils, who’ll take them to their home across the water. Wututu demands, and what will they do to us there? The man says nothing, Wututu asking, well? Agasu tries to dart a glance over his shoulder, they weren’t allowed to talk or sing as they walked.

The man replies, it’s possible they’ll eat us, this is what he’s been told, which is why they need so many slaves, it’s since they’re always hungry. Wututu starts to cry as she walked, Agasu saying, don’t cry, his sister, they won’t eat her, he’ll protect her, the gods will protect her, but Wututu continues to cry, walking with a heavy heart, feeling pain and anger and fear as only a child can feel it: raw and overwhelming. She was unable to tell Agasu she wasn’t worried about the white devils eating her, she’d survive, she was certain of it. She cried since she was scared they’d eat her brother, and she wasn’t certain she could protect him.

They reached a trading post, and they were kept there for 10 days, in the morning of the 10th day they were taken from the hut in which they’d been imprisoned (it’d become very crowded in the final days, as men arrived from far and way, some of them from hundreds of miles, bringing their own strings and skeins of slaves). They were marched to the harbor, and Wututu saw the ship which was to take them away. Her first thought was how big a ship it was, her 2nd, it was too small for all of them to fit inside, it sat lightly on the water. The ship’s boat came back and forth, ferrying the captives to the ship where they were manacled and arranged in low decks by sailors, some of who were brick-red or tan skinned, with strange pointy noses and beards which made them look like beasts.

Several of the sailors looked like her own people, like the men who’d marched her to the coast. The men and women and children separated, forced into different areas on the slave deck. There were too many slaves for the ship to hold easily, so another dozen men were chained up on the deck in the open, beneath the places where the crew would sling their hammocks. Wututu was put in with the children, not with the women, she wasn’t chained, merely locked in.

Agasu was forced in with the men, in chains, packed like herrings, it stinking under this deck, although the crew scrubbed it down since their last cargo. It was a stink which had entered the wood: the smell of fear and bile and diarrhea and death of fever and madness and hate. Wututu sat in the hot hold with the other children, she could feel the children on each side of her sweating. A wave tumbled a small boy into her, hard, and he apologized in a tongue which Wututu didn’t recognize.

She tried to smile at him in the semi-darkness, the ship setting sail, now riding heavy in the water. Wututu wonders about the place the white men came from (although none of them were truly white: sea-burned and sunburned they were, and their skins dark). Were they so short of food they had to send all the way to her land for people to eat? Or was it she was to be a delicacy, a rare treat for a people who’d eaten so many things only black-skinned flesh in their cook pots made their mouths water.

On the 2nd day out of port the ship hit a squall, not a bad one, but the ship’s decks lurched and tumbled, and the smell of vomit joined the mixed smells of urine and liquid feces and fear-sweat. Rain poured down on them in bucketloads from the air gratings set in the ceiling of the slave deck. A week into the voyage, and well out of sight of land, the slaves were allowed out of irons, they were warned any disobedience, any trouble, and they’d be punished more than they’d ever imagined. In the morning the captives were fed beans and ship’s biscuits, and a mouthful each of vinegared lime juice, harsh enough their faces would twist, and they’d cough and sputter, and some would moan and wail as the lime juice was spooned out.

They couldn’t spit it out though, if they were caught spitting or dribbling it out, they were lashed or beaten. The night brought them salted beef, tasting unpleasant, and there being a rainbow sheen to the gray surface of the meat, this being the start of the voyage, as it continued the meat grew worse. When they could, Wututu and Agasu would huddle together, talking of their mother and their home and playfellows. Sometimes Wututu would tell Agasu the stories their mother’d told them, like those of Elegba, the trickiest of the gods, who was Great Mawu’s eyes and ears in the world, who took messages to Mawu and brought back Mawu’s replies.

In the evenings, to while away the monotony of the voyage, the sailors would make the slaves sing for them and dance the dances of their native lands. Wututu was lucky she’d been put in with the children, they packed in tightly and ignored, the women not always so fortunate. On some slave ships the female slaves were raped repeatedly and continually by the crew, simply as an unspoken prerequisite of the voyage. This wasn’t one of those ships, which isn’t to say there were no rapes.

A hundred men, women and children died on this voyage and were dropped over the side, and some of the captives who were dropped over the side hadn’t yet died, but the green chill of the ocean cooled their final fever and they went down flailing, choking, lost. Wututu and Agasu were traveling on a Dutch ship, but they didn’t know this, and it may as easily have been British, or Portuguese, or Spanish, or French. The black crewmen on the ship, their skins even darker than Wututu’s, told the captives where to go, what to do, when to dance. One morning Wututu caught one of the black guards staring at her, when she was eating, the man came over to her and stared down at her, without saying anything.

She asks, why does he do this? Why does he serve the white devils? He grinned at her as if her question was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Then he leans over, so his lips were almost brushing her ears, so his hot breath on her ear made her suddenly feel sick.

He tells her, is she was older, he’d make her scream with happiness from his penis, perhaps he will do it tonight, he’s seen how well she dances. She looks at him with her nut brown eyes and says, unflinching, smiling even, if he puts it in her down there she’ll bite it off with her teeth down there, she’s a witch girl and has very sharp teeth down there. She took pleasure in watching his expression change, saying nothing and walking away. The words had come out of her mouth, but they hadn’t been her words: she hadn’t thought of them or made them, so she realized, those were the words of Elegba the trickster.

Mawu had made the world and then, thanks to Elegba’s trickery, had lost interest in it. It was Elegba of the clever ways and the iron-hard erection who’d spoken through her, who’d ridden her for a moment, and this night before she slept she gave thanks to Elegba. Several of the captives refused to eat and whipped until they put food into their mouths and swallowed, although the whipping was severe enough 2 men died of it, still, no one else on the ship tried to starve themselves to freedom. A man and woman try to kill themselves by leaping over the side, the woman succeeding, the man rescued and tied to the mast and lashed for the better part of a day, until his back ran with blood, and he was left there as the day became night.

He was given no food to eat, and nothing to drink but his own piss, by the 3rd day raving, and his head swollen and grown soft, like an old melon. When he stopped raving they threw him over the side. Also, for 5 days following the escape attempt the captives were returned to their manacles and chains. It was a long journey and a bad one for the captives, and it wasn’t pleasant for the crew, although they’d learned to harden their hearts to the business, and pretended to themselves they were no more than farmers, taking their livestock to the market.

They made harbor on a pleasant, balmy day in Bridgetown, Barbados, and the captives were carried from the ship to the shore in low boats sent out from the dock and taken to the market square, where they were, by dint of a certain amount of shouting, and blows from cudgels, arranged into lines. A whistle blew, and the market square filled with men, poking, prodding, red-faced men, shouting, inspecting, calling, appraising, grumbling. Wututu and Agasu were separated then, it happened so fast - a big man forced open Agasu’s mouth, looked at his teeth, felt his arm muscles, nodded, and 2 other men hauled Agasu away, he not fighting them. He looked at Wututu and calls, be brave to her, she nodding and then her vision smears and blurs with tears, and she wails.

Together they were twins, magical, powerful, apart they were 2 children in pain, she never saw him again but once, and never in life. This is what happened to Agasu, first they taking him to a seasoning farm, where they whipped him daily for the things he did and didn’t do, teaching him a smattering of English and giving him the name of Inky Jack, for the darkness of his skin. When he ran away they hunted him down with dogs and brought him back, and cut off a toe with a chisel, to teach him a lesson he wouldn’t forget. He’d have starved himself to death, but when he refused to eat his front teeth were broken and thin gruel forced into his mouth, until he had no choice but to swallow or choke.

Even in those times they preferred slaves born into captivity to those brought over from Africa. The free-born slaves tried to run, or they tried to die, either way, there went the profits. When Inky Jack was 16 he was sold, with several other slaves, to a sugar plantation on St. Domingue, they calling him Hyacinth, the big, broken-toothed slave. He met an old woman from his own village on this plantation - she’d been a house slave before her fingers became too gnarled and arthritic - who told him the whites intentionally split up captives from the same towns and villages and regions, to avoid insurrection and revolts.

They didn’t like it when slaves spoke to each other in their own languages. Hyacinth learned some French, and was taught a few of the teachings of the Catholic Church, each day he cutting sugar cane from well before sun rose til after the sun set. He fathered several children, going with the other slaves, in the small hours of the night to the woods, although it was forbidden, to dance the Calinda, to sing to Damballa-Wedo, the serpent god, in the form of a black snake. He sang to Elegba, to Ogu, Shango, Zaka, and to many others, all the gods the captives had brought with them to the island, brought in their minds and their secret hearts.

The slaves on the sugar plantations of St. Domingue rarely lived more than a decade. The free time they were given - 2 hours in the heat of moon, and 5 hours in the dark of the night (from 11 til 4) - was also the only time they had to grow and tend the food they’d eat (for they were not fed by their masters, merely given small plots of land to cultivate, with which to feed themselves) and it was also the time they had to sleep and dream. Even so, they’d take this time and they’d gather and dance, sing, and worship. The soil of St. Domingue was a fertile soil and the gods of Dahomey and the Congo and the Niger put down thick roots there and grew lush and huge and deep, and they promised freedom to those who worshiped them at night in the groves.

Hyacinth was 25 when a spider bit the back of his right hand, it becoming infected, the flesh on the back of his hand necrotic: soon enough his whole arm swollen and purple, the hand stinking, it throbbing and burning. They gave him crude rum to drink, and heated the blade of a machete in the fire until it glowed red and white. They cut his arm off at the shoulder with a saw, and they cauterized it with the burning blade, he laying in a fever for a week, then returning to work. The one-armed slave called Hyacinth took part in the slave revolt in 1791.

Elegba himself took possession of Hyacinth in the grove, riding him as a white man rode a horse, and spoke through him. He remembers little of what was said, but the others who were with him told him he’d promised them freedom from their captivity. He remembered only his erection, rod-like and painful, and raising both hands - the one he had, and the one he no longer possessed - to the moon. A pig was killed, and the men and the women of this plantation drank the hot blood of the pig, pledging themselves and binding themselves into a brotherhood.

They swore they were an army of freedom, pledged themselves once more to the gods of all the lands from which they’d been dragged as plunder. They told each other, if they die in battle with the whites, they’ll be reborn in Africa, in their homes, in their own tribes. There was another Hyacinth in the uprising, so they now called Agasu by the name of Big One-Arm, he fighting, worshipping, sacrificing, planning. He saw his friends and his lovers killed, and he kept fighting for 12 years, a maddening, bloody struggle with plantation owners, with troops brought over from France.

They fought, and kept fighting and impossibly, they won on Jan 1st, 1804, the independence of St. Domingue, soon to be known to the world as the Republic of Haiti, was declared. Big One-Arm didn’t live to see it, dying Aug 1802, bayoneted by a French soldier. At the precise moment of the death of Big One-Arm (who had once been called Hyacinth, Inky Jack, and who was forever in his heart Agasu), his sister, who he’d known as Wututu, who had been called Mary on her first plantation in the Carolinas, and Daisy when she’d become a house slave, and Sukey when she was sold to the Lavere family down the river in New Orleans, felt the cold bayonet slide between her ribs and started to scream and weep uncontrollably. Her twin daughters woke and started to howl, they were cream and coffee colored, her new babies, not like the black children she’d borne when she was on the plantation and little more than a girl herself - children she hadn’t seen since they were 15 and 10 years old.

The middle girl had been dead for a year, when she was sold away from them. Sukey had been whipped many times since she’d come ashore - once, salt rubbed into the wounds, on another occasion she whipped so hard and so long she couldn’t sit, or allow anything to touch her back, for several days. She’d been raped several times when younger, by black men who’d been ordered to share her wooden palette, by white men. She’d been chained, she hadn’t wept the, though since her brother had been taken from her she’d only wept once.

It was in North Carolina, when she’d seen the food for the slave children and dogs poured into the same trough, and she’d seen her little children scrabbling with the dogs for the scraps. She saw this happen one day - and she’d seen it before, every day on this plantation, and she’d see it again many times before she left - she saw it this one day and it broke her heart. She’d been beautiful for awhile, then the years of pain had taken their toll, and she was no longer beautiful. Her face was lined, and there was too much pain in those brown eyes.

11 years earlier, when she was 25, her right arm had withered, none of the white folk knowing what to make of it. The flesh seemed to melt from the bones, and now her right arm hung by her side, little more than a skeletal arm covered in skin, and almost immobile, after this she’d become a house-slave. The Casterton family, who’d owned the plantation, were impressed by her cooking and house skills, but Mrs. Casterton found the withered arm unsettling, and so she was sold to the Lavere family, who were out for a year from LA: M. Lavere a fat, cheerful man, who was in need of a cook and a maid of all work, and who wasn’t in the slightest repulsed by the slave Daisy’s withered arm. When, a year later, they returned to LA, slave Sukey went with them, in New Orleans the women came to her, and the men also, to buy cures and love charms and little fetishes, black folks, yes, of course, but white folks too.

The Lavere family turned a blind eye to it, perhaps enjoying the prestige of having a slave who was feared and respected. They wouldn’t however, sell her her freedom, Sukey going into the bayou late at night and dancing the Calinda and the Bamboula. Like the dancers of St. Dominique and the dancers of her native land, the dancers in the bayou had a black snake as their voudon, even so, the gods of her homeland and of other African nations didn’t possess her people as they’d possessed her brother and the folk of St. Domingue. She’d still invoke them and call their names, to beg them for favors.

She listened when the white folk spoke of the revolt in St. Domingo (as they called it), and how it was doomed to fail - saying, think of it! A cannibal land! - and then she observed they no longer spoke of it. Soon, it seems to her they pretended there never had been a place called St. Domingo, and as for Haiti, the word was never mentioned. It was as if the whole American nation had decided they could by an effort of belief, command a good-sized Caribbean island to no longer exist merely by willing it so.

A generation of Lavere children grew up under Sukey’s watchful eye. The youngest, unable to say Sukey as a child, had called her Mama Zouzou, and the name had stuck. Now the years 1821, and Sukey was in her mid-50s, looking much older, and knowing more of the secrets than old Sanite Dede, who sold candies in front of the Cabildo, more than Mari Saloppe, who called herself the voodoo queen: both, free women of color, whilst Mama Zouzou was a slave, and would die one, or so her master had said. The young woman who came to her to find what’d happened to her husband styled herself the Widow Paris.

She was high-breasted, young, and proud, having African blood in her, and European, and Indian blood. Her skin was reddish, her hair a gleaming black, eyes black and haughty. Her husband, Jacques Paris was, perhaps dead, 3 quarters white as these things were calculated, and the bastard of a once-proud family, one of the many immigrants who fled from St. Domingo, and as freeborn as his striking young wife. Widow Paris asks, her Jacques, is he dead? She was a hairdresser who went from home to home, arranging the coiffures of the elegant ladies of New Orleans before their demanding social engagements.

Mama Zouzou consulted the bones, then shook her head saying, he’s with a white woman, somewhere north of here, a white woman with golden hair, he’s alive. This wasn’t magic, it was common knowledge in New Orleans just with who Jacques Paris didn’t already know Jacques Paris had run off, and the color of her hair. Mama Zouzou was surprised to realize the Widow Paris didn’t already know Jacques was sticking his quadroon little pipi into another pink-skinned girl up in Colfax every night. Well, on the nights he wasn’t so drunk he could use it for nothing better than pissing.

Perhaps she did know, perhaps she had another reason for coming. The Widow Paris came to see the old slave woman one or two times a week, after a month, bringing gifts for the old woman: hair ribbons, and a seed-cake, and a black rooster. The girl says, Mama Zouzou, it’s time for her to teach her what she knows. Mama Zouzou replies, yes, she knowing which way the wind blew, and besides, the Widow Paris had confessed she’d been born with webbed toes, which meant she was a twin and she’d killed her twin in the womb.

What choice did Mama Zouzou have? She teaches the girl 2 nutmegs hung upon a string around the neck til the string breaks will cure heart murmurs, while a pigeon which has never flown, cut open and laid on the patient’s head, will draw a fever. She showed her how to make a wishing bag, a small leather bag containing 13 pennies, 9 cotton seeds and the bristles of a black hog, and how to rub the bag to make wishes come true. The Widow Paris learned everything Mama Zouzou told her, she having no real interest in the gods, though, not really.

Her interests were in the practicalities, delighted to learn if one dipped a live frog in honey and placed it in an ant’s nest, then, when the bones are cleaned and white, a close examination would reveal a flat, heart-shaped bone, and another with a hook on it: the bone with the hook on it must be hooked onto the garment of the one who wishes to love them, while the heart-shaped bone must be kept safely (for if it’s lost, one’s loved one will turn on them like an angry dog). Infallibly, if one does this, the one they love will be theirs. She learned dried snake powder, placed in the face powder of an enemy, will produce blindness, and an enemy can be made to drown herself by taking a piece of her underwear, turning it inside out, and burying it at midnight under a brick. Mama Zouzou shows the Widow Paris the World Wonder Root, the great and the little roots of John the Conqueror, she showing her dragon’s blood, and valerian and five-finger grass.

She shows her how to brew waste-away tea, and follow-me water and favorite-Shingo water. All these things and more Mama Zouzou showed the Widow Paris, still, it was disappointing for the old woman. She did her best to teach her the hidden truths, the deep knowledge, to tell her of Elegba, of Maqu, of Aido-Hwedo the voudon serpent, and the rest, but the Widow Paris (I (?) shall now tell the name she was born with, and the name she later made famous: it was Marie Laveau, but this wasn’t the great Marie Laveau, the one we’ve heard of, this was her mother, who eventually became the Widow Glapion), she had no interest in the gods of the distant land. If St. Domingo had been a lush black earth for the African gods to grow in, this land, with its corn and its melons, its crawfish and its cotton, was barren and infertile.

She doesn’t want to know, complained Mama Zouzou to Clementine, her confidant, who took in the washing for many of the houses in this district, washing their curtains and coverlets. Clementine had a blossom of burns on her cheek, and one of her children had been scalded to death when a copper overturned. Clementine replies, then don’t teach her. Mama Zouzou states, she taught her, but she doesn’t see what’s valuable - all she sees is what she can do with it. She gives her diamonds, but she cares only for pretty glass.

She gives her quail and she wishes to eat only rat. Clementine asks, then why does she persist? Mama Zouzou shrugs her thin shoulder, causing her withered arm to shake, she can’t answer, she could say she teaches because she’s grateful to be alive, and she is: she has seen too many die. She could say she dreams one day the slaves will rise, as we rose (and were defeated) in LaPlace, but she knows in her heart without the gods of Africa, we’ll never overcome our white captors, will never return to their homelands.

When she woke the terrible night almost 20 years earlier, and felt the cold steel between her ribs, this was when Mama Zouzou’s life had ended. Now she was someone who didn’t live, who simply hated. If one asked her about the hate she’d have been unable to tell one about a 12 year old girl on a stinking ship: which had scabbed over in her mind - there too many whippings and beatings, too many nights in manacles, too many partings, too much pain. She could’ve told one about her son, though, and how his thumb had been cut off when their master discovered the boy was able to read and write.

She could’ve told one of her daughter, 12 years old and already 8 months pregnant by an overseer, and how they dug a hole in the red earth to take her daughter’s pregnant belly, and then they whipped her until her back had bled. Despite the carefully dug hole, her daughter had lost her baby and her life on a Sunday morning, when all the white folks were in church… too much pain. Mama Zouzou tells the young Widow Paris in the bayou, one hour after midnight, worship them. They were both naked to the waist, sweating in the humid night, their skins given accents by the white moonlight.

The Widow Paris’ husband Jacques (whose own death, 3 years later, would have several remarkable features) had told Marie a little about the gods of St. Domingo, but she didn’t care, power came from the rituals, not from the gods. Together Mama Zouzou and the Widow Paris crooned and stamped and keened in the swamp, singing in the blacksnakes, the free woman of color and the slave woman with the withered arm. Mama Zouzou says, there’s more to it than just, one prospers, one’s enemies fail. Many of the words of the ceremonies, words she knew once, words her brother had also known, these words had fled from her memory.

She told pretty Marie Laveau the words didn’t matter, only the tunes and the beats, and there, singing and tapping in the blacksnakes, in the swamp, she has an odd vision. She sees the beats of the songs, the Calinda beat, the Bamboula beat, all the rhythms of equatorial Africa spreading slowly across this midnight land until the whole country shivers and swings to the beats of the old gods whose realms she’d left, and even this she understands somehow, in the swamp, even this won’t be enough. She turns to pretty Marie and sees herself through Marie’s eyes, a black-skinned old woman, her face lined, her bony arm hanging limply by her side, her eyes the eyes of one who has seen her children fight in the trough for food from the dogs. She saw herself, and she knew then for the first time the revulsion and the fear the younger woman had for her.

Then she laughs, and crouches, and picks up in her good hand a blacksnake as tall as a sapling and as thick as a ship’s rope. She says, here, here will be our voudon. She drops the unresisting snake into a basket which yellow Marie was carrying, and then, in the moonlight, the second sight possessed her for a final time, and she saw her brother Agasu, not the 12 year old boy she’d last seen in the Bridgetown market so long ago, but a huge man, bald and grinning with broken teeth, his back lined with deep scars. In one hand he held a machete- knife, his right arm was barely a stump, she reaching out her own good left hand.

She whispers, stay, stay awhile, she’ll be there, she’ll be with him soon, and Marie Paris thought the old woman was speaking to her. Shadow drives west, across Wisconsin and Minnesota and into North Dakota, where the snow-covered hills looked like huge sleeping buffalo, and he and Wed saw nothing but nothing and plenty of it, for mile after mile. They went south, then, into South Dakota, heading for reservation country, Wed having traded in the Lincoln town car, which Shadow had liked driving, for a lumbering and ancient Winnebago, which smelled nonspecifically, but pervasively, and unmistakably of male cat and which he didn’t enjoy driving at all. As they passed their first signpost for Mt. Rushmore, still several hundred miles away, Wed grunted, now this is a holy place.

Shadow thought Wed was asleep, responding, he knows it used to be sacred to the Indians. Wed replies, it’s a holy place, this is the American Way - they need to give people an excuse to come and worship. These days, people can’t just go and see a mountain. Thus, Mr. Gutzon Borglum’s tremendous presidential faces, once they were carved, permission granted, and now people drive out in their multitudes to see something in the flesh, which they’ve already seen on a thousand postcards.

Shadow states, he knew a guy once did weight training at the Muscle Farm, years back who said the Dakota Indians, the young men climb up the mountain, then form death-defying human chains off the heads, just so the guy at the end of the chain can piss on the presidents nose. Wed guffawed, oh, fine! Very fine! Is any specific president the particular butt of their ire? Shadow shrugs, he never said. Miles vanished beneath the wheels of the Winnebago, Shadow starting to imagine he was staying still while the American landscape moved past them at a steady 67 miles per hour.

A wintry mist fogged the edges of things, and by midday on the 2nd day of the drive, they were almost there. Shadow, who’d been thinking, says, a girl vanished from Lakeside last week when we were in San Francisco. Wed, sounding barely interested goes, mm? Shadow continues, kid named Alison McGovern, not the first kid to vanish there.

There have been others, going in the wintertime, Wed furrows his brow, saying, it’s a tragedy, is it not? The little faces on a milk-carton - and on the walls of freeway rest areas. Have you seen me? they ask. A deeply existential question at the best of times, Have you seen me? Pull off at the next exit.

Shadow thought he heard a copter pass overhead, but the clouds were too low to see anything. Shadow asks, why’d he pick Lakeside? Wed replies, he told him, it’s a nice quiet place to hide him away. He’s off the board there, under the radar.

Shadow repeats, why? Wed responds, because this is the way it is. Now hang a left. Shadow turns left, Wed saying, there’s something wrong, fuck. Jesus fucking Christ on a bicycle. Slow down, but don’t stop. Shadow asks, care to elaborate? Wed says, trouble. Does he know any alternative routes?

Shadow replies, not really, this is his first time in South Dakota, also he doesn’t know where we’re going. On the other side of the hill something flashed redly, smudged by the mist. Wed says, roadblock, pushing his hand deeply into his one pocket of his suit then another, searching for something. Shadow offers, he can stop and turn around, if we had a jeep he’d go off-road, but the Winnebago’s only going to tip if he tries and drives her across this ditch.

Wed states, we can’t turn, they’re behind us as well, take his speed down to 10, 15 miles per hour. Shadow glances into the mirror, there being headlights behind them, under a mile back, Shadow asking, is he sure about this? Wed snorts, as sure as eggs is eggs, as the turkey-farmer said when he hatched his first turtle. Ah, success!, and from the bottom of a pocket he produces a small piece of white chalk.

He starts to scratch with the chalk on the dashboard of the camper, making marks as if he were solving an algebraic puzzle - or perhaps, Shadow thought, as if he were a hobo, scratching long messages to the other hobos in hobo code - bad dog here, dangerous town, nice women, soft jail in which to overnight… Wed says, Ok, now increase his speed to 30, and don’t slow down from this. One of the cars behind them turns on its lights and siren, accelerating toward them, Wed repeating, don’t slow down, they only want us to slow before they get to the roadblock. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

They crested the hill, the roadblock less than a quarter of a mile away, 12 cars arranged across the road, and on the side of the road, police cars, and several big black SUVs. Wed says, there, and puts his chalk away, the dash of the Winnebago now covered with rune-like scratchings. The car with the siren was just behind them, it having slowed to their speed, and an amplified voice shouting, pull over! Shadow looks at Wed, who says, turn right, just pull off the road, Shadow replying, he can’t take this thing off-road, we’ll tip.

Wed replies, it’ll be fine, take a right, now! Shadow pulls the wheel down with his right hand, and the Winnebago lurches and jolts. For a moment he thinks he thought he’d been correct, the camper was going to tip, and then the world through the windshield dissolves and shimmers, like the reflection in a clear pool when the wind brushes the surface, and the Dakotas stretch and shift. The clouds and mist and snow and day were gone, now there were stars overhead, hanging like frozen spears of light, stabbing the night sky.

Park here, Wed says, we can walk the rest of the way. Shadow turns the engine off, and goes into the book of the Winnebago, pulling on his coat, Sorel winter boots, and gloves, then climbs out of the vehicle and waits. Shadow states, ok, lets go. Wed looking at him with amusement and something else - irritation, perhaps, or pride.

He asks, why doesn’t he argue? Why doesn’t he exclaim it’s all impossible? Why the hell does he only do what he says and take it all so fucking calmly? Shadow states, since he’s not paying him to ask questions, and then he realizing the truth as the words came out of his mouth, says, anyway, nothing’s really surprised me since Laura.

Wed asks, since she came back from the dead? Shadow replies, since he learned she was screwing Robbie, this one hurt, everything else only sits on the surface. Where are we going now? Wed points, and they start to walk, the ground beneath their feet was rock of some kind, slick and volcanic, occasionally glassy. The air was chilly, but not winter - cold.

They side stepped their way awkwardly down a hill. There was a rough path, and they followed it. Shadow looks down to the bottom of the hill, and realizes what he was looking at was impossible. Shadow asks, what the hell is this?, but Wed touches his finger to his lips, shaking his head sharply, silence.

It looked like a mechanical spider, blue metal, glittering LED lights, and it was the size of a tractor, squatting at the bottom of the hill. Beyond it were an assortment of bones, each with a flame beside it little bigger then a candle-flame, flickering. Wed gestures for Shadow to keep his distance from these objects. Shadow takes an extra step to the side, which was a mistake on this glassy path, as his ankle twists and he tumbled down the slope as if he’d been dropped, rolling and slipping and bouncing.

He grabs at a rock as he goes past, and the obsidian snag rips his leather glove as if it were paper. He comes to rest at the bottom of the hill, between the mechanical spider and the bones. He puts a hand down to push himself to his feet, and found himself touching what appeared to be a thighbone with the palm of his hand, and he was… standing in the daylight, smoking a cigarette, and looking at his watch. There were cars all around him, some empty, some not, and he was wishing he hadn’t had this last cup of coffee, for he dearly needed a piss, and it was starting to become uncomfortable.

One of the local law enforcement people came over to him, a big man with frost in his walrus mustache. He’d already forgotten the man’s name, the city officer saying, he doesn’t know how they could’ve lost them, apologetic and puzzled. The man replies, it was an optical illusion, get them in freak weather conditions, the mist, it was a mirage. They were driving down some other road, we thought they were on this one.

The city officer (Local Law Enforcement, the name given) looks disappointed, saying, oh, he thought it was maybe like an X-Files kinda thing. The man replies, nothing so exciting, he’s afraid. He suffers from occasional hemorrhoids and his ass has just started itching in the way which signals a flare-up is coming. He wants to be back inside the Beltway, wishing there was a tree to go and stand behind, the urge to piss getting worse, dropping the cigarette, he steps on it.

The city officer walks over to one of the police cars and says something to the driver, they both shaking their heads. He wonders if he should simply grit his teeth, try to imagine he’s in Maui with no one else around, and piss against the rear wheel of the car. He wishes he wasn’t so utterly pee-shy, and he thinks maybe he can hold it in for longer but he finds himself remembering a newspaper clipping someone had tacked up in the lounge in his frat house, 30 years before: the cautionary tale of an old man who had been on a long bus ride with a busted restroom, who held it in, and at the end of his journey, needed to be catheterized in order ever to piss again… This was ridiculous, he isn’t this old, he’s going to celebrate his 50th birthday in Apr, and his waterworks work just fine, everything working just fine.

He pulls out his phone, touches the menu, pages down, and finds the address marked ‘Laundry‘, which had amused him so much when he typed it in - a reference to The Man form U.N.C.L.E., and as he looks at it he realizes it’s not from this at all. This was a tailor’s, he’s thinking of Get Smart, and he still feels weird and slightly embarrassed after all these years about not realizing it was a comedy when he was a kid, and only wanting a shoe phone. A woman’s voice on the phone, yes? The reply, this is Mr. Town, for Mister World.

The response, hold please, she’ll see if he’s available. There’s silence, Town crosses his legs and tugs his belt higher on his belly - got to lose these last 10 pounds - and away from his bladder, then an urbane voice says, hello, Mr. Town. Town responds, we lost them, feeling a knot of frustration in his gut: these were the bastards, the lousy dirty sons of bitches who killed Woody and Stone, for Chrissakes. Good men, good men, he badly wanting to fuck Mrs. Wood, but knowing it’s still too soon after Woody’s death to make a move.

So he’s taking her out for dinner every couple weeks, an investment in the future, she only grateful for the attention… World asks, how? He reply, he doesn’t know, we set up a roadblock, there was nowhere they could’ve gone and they went there anyway. World replies, just another one of life’s little mysteries, not to worry, has he calmed the locals?

He replies, told ‘em it was an optical-illusion. World asks, they buy it? He answers, probably. There was something very familiar about Mr. World’s voice - which was a strange thing to think, he’d been working with him directly for 2 years now, spoken to him every day, of course there was something familiar about his voice.

World says, they’ll be far away now, Town asks, should we send people down to the rez to intercept them? World replies, not worth the aggravation, too many jurisdictional issues, and there are only so many strings we can pull in a morning. We have plenty of time, just get back here, he’s got his hands full at this end trying to organize the policy meeting. Town asks, trouble?

World states, it’s a pissing contest, he’s proposed they have it out here, the techies want it in Austin, or maybe San Jose, the players wanting Hollywood, the intangibles on Wall Street. Everybody wants it in their own back yard, nobody’s going to give. Town asks, he need him to do anything? World replies, not yet, he’ll growl at some of them, stroke others, he knew the routine.

Town states, yessir, World replying, carry on, Town, the connection broken. Town thinks he should’ve had a SWAT team to pick off the fucking Winnebago, or land-mines on the road, or a tactical friggin’ nukeler device, which would have shown those bastards we meant business. It was like Mr. World had once said to him, we’re writing the future in Letters of Fire, and Mr. Town thinks Jesus Christ, if he doesn’t piss now he’ll lose a kidney, it’ll just burst, and it was like his pop had said when they were on long journeys, when Town was a kid, out on the interstate, his pop would always say, his back teeth are afloat, and Mr. Town could hear this voice even now, the sharp Yankee accent saying, he’s got to take a leak soon, his back teeth are afloat… and it was then Shadow felt a hand opening his own hand, prising it open one finger at a time, off the thighbone it was clutching. He no longer needed to urinate, this was someone else, he standing under the stars on a glassy rock plain, and the bone was down on the ground beside the other bones.

Wed made the signal for silence again, then starts to walk, Shadow following. There was a creak from the mechanical spider, and Wed froze, Shadow stopping and waiting with him. Green lights flickered and ran up and along its side in clusters, Shadow trying not to breathe too loudly. He though about what had just happened, it’d been like looking through a window into someone else’s mind, and then he thought, Mr. World, it was me who thought his voice sounded familiar, this was his thought, not Town’s, this was why this seemed so strange.

He tries to identify the voice in his mind, to put it into the category in which it belonged, but it eluded him. Shadow thinks, it’ll come to him, sooner or later, it’ll come to him. The green lights went blue, then red, then faded to a dull red, and the spider settled down on its metallic haunches. Wed starts walking forward, a lonely figure beneath the stars, in a broad-brimmed hat, his frayed dark coat gusting randomly in the nowhere wind, his staff tapping on the glassy rock floor.

When the metallic spider was only a distant glint in the starlight, far back on the plain, Wed saying, it should be safe to speak, now. Shadow asks, where are we? Wed replies, behind the scenes, Shadow asks, sorry? Wed states, think of it as being behind the scenes, like in a theatre or something, he just pulled them out of the audience and now we’re walking about backstage, it’s a shortcut.

Shadow says, when he touched this bone, he was in the mind of a guy named Town, with this spookshow, he hates them. Wed agrees, yes. Shadow continues, he’s got a boss named Mr. World, reminding him of someone, but he doesn’t know who. He was looking into Town’s head - or maybe he was in his head, he uncertain.

Wed asks, do they know where we’re headed? Shadow replies, he thinks they’re calling off the hunt right now, they don’t want to follow them to the rez, are we going to a rez? Wed replies, maybe, leaning on his staff for a moment, then continuing to walk. Shadow asks, what was the spider thing?

Wed answers, a pattern manifestation, a search engine. Shadow asks, are they dangerous? Wed states, they only get to be his age by assuming the worst, Shadow smiling and asks, and how old would this be? Wed replies, old as his tongue, and a few months older than his teeth.

Shadow says, he play his cards so close to his chest, he’s not even sure they’re really cards at all. Wed only grunts, each hill they come to harder to climb, and Shadow starting to feel headachy. There was a pounding quality to the starlight, something which resonated with the pulse in his temples and his chest. At the bottom of the next hill he stumbled, opened his mouth to say something and without warning, vomited.

Wed reaches into an inside pocket, and produces a small hip flask saying, take a sip of this, only a sip. The liquid was pungent, and it evaporated in his mouth like good brandy, although it didn’t taste like alcohol. Wed takes the flask away, and pockets it saying, it’s not good for the audience to find themselves walking backstage, this is why he’s feeling sick. We need to hurry to get him out of here.

They walk faster - Wed at a solid trudge, Shadow stumbling from time to time, but feeling better for the drink, which left his mouth tasting of orange peel, of rosemary oil and peppermint and cloves. Wed took his arm and says, there, pointing to two identical hillocks of frozen rock-glass to their left and continues, walk between those 2 mounds, walk beside him. They walk, and the cold air and bright daylight smashed into Shadow’s face at the same time. He stops, closes his eyes, dazzled and light-blinded, then shades his eyes with his hand, he opens them once more.

They were standing halfway up a gentle hill, the mist gone, the day sunny and chill, the sky a perfect blue. At the bottom of the hill was a gravel road, and a red station wagon bouncing along it like a child’s toy car. A gust of wood smoke stung Shadow’s face, making his eyes tear. The smoke came from a building nearby, which looked as if someone had picked up a mobile home and dropped it on the side of the hill 30 years ago.

It was much repaired, patched, and in places, added onto: Shadow certain the galvanized tin chimney, from which the wood smoke was coming, wasn’t part of the original structure. As they reached the door it opened, and a middle-aged man with dark skin, sharp eyes and a mouth like a knife-slash looked down at them and said, Eyah, he heard there were 2 white men on their way to see him. 2 whites in a Winnebago, and he heard they got lost, like white men always get lost if they don’t put up their signs everywhere, and now look at these 2 sorry beasts at the door. They know they’re on Lakota land?

His hair was gray, and long. Wed says, since when was he Lakota, old fraud? He was wearing a coat and a flap-eared cap, and already it seems to Shadow unlikely only a few moments ago under the stars he’d been wearing a broad-brimmed hat and tattered cloak. Wed says, so, Whiskey Jack, sad bastard.

He’s starving, and his friend here just threw up his breakfast, is he going to invite them in? Whiskey Jack scratches an armpit, wearing blue jeans and undershirt the gray of his hair, wearing moccasins, and seemed not to notice the cold. Then says, he likes it here, come in, white men who lost their Winnebago. There was more wood smoke in the air inside the trailer, and another man sitting at a table.

He wore stained buckskins and was barefoot, his skin the color of bark. Wed seems delighted saying, well, it seems our delay was fortuitous, Whiskey Jack and Apple Johnny, 2 birds with one stone. Apple Johnny stares at Wed, then reaches down a hand to his crotch, cupped it and says, wrong again, he jes’ checked and he got both of his stones, jes’ where they oughta be. He looks up at Shadow, raisese his hand, palm out and says, he’s John Chapman, he don’t mind anything his boss says about him, he’s an asshole, always was an asshole, always goin’ to be an asshole, some people is jes’ assholes, and this is an end of it.

Shadow says, Mike Ainsel, Chapman rubbing his stubby chin saying, Ainsel, this isn’t a name, but it’ll do at a pinch, what do they call him? He responds, Shadow, Chapman responds, he’ll call him Shadow then. Hey, Whiskey Jack - but it wasn’t really Whiskey Jack he was saying, Shadow realizes; too many syllables - continues how’s the food looking? Whiskey Jack takes a wooden spoon and lifts the lid off a black iron pot, bubbling away on the range of the wood-burning stove.

He says, it’s ready for eating. He takes 4 plastic bowls and spooned the contents of the pot into the bowls, putting them down on the table. Then he opens the door, steps out into the snow, and pulls a plastic gallon jug from the snow bank. He brings it inside, and pours 4 large glasses of a cloudy yellow-brown liquid, which he puts beside each bowl.

Last of all he finds 4 spoons, sits down at the table with the other men, and Wed raises his glass suspiciously. He says, looks like piss, Whiskey Jack replying, he still drink this stuff, them white men are crazy, this is better. Then, to Shadow says, the stew is mostly wild turkey, John here brought the applejack. Chapman says, it’s a soft apple cider, Shadow forcing himself to slow down, to chew his food, not to gulp it, but he was more hungry than he’d have believed.

He helps himself to a 2nd bowl of the stew and a 2nd glass of cider. Chapman says, Dame Rumor says he’s been out talking to all manner of folk, offering them all manner of things. Says he’s takin’ the old folks on the war path. Shadow and Whiskey Jack were washing up, putting the leftover stew into Tupperware bowls, Whiskey Jack putting the bowls into the snowdrifts outside his front door, and putting a milk crate on top of the place he’d pushed them, so he could find them again.

Wed says, he thinks this is a fair and judicious summary of events. Whiskey Jack says flatly, they’ll win, they won already, he lost already, like the white man and his people, they won, and when we lost, they made treaties. Then they broke the treaties, and they won a gain, he’s not fighting for another lost cause. Chapman says, and it’s no use he lookin’ at him, for even if he fought for him - which’n he won’t - he’s no use to him.

Mangy rat-tailed bastards jes’ picked him off and clean forgot him, he stops, then says, Paul Bunyon. He shakes his head slowly and he says it again, Paul Bunyon. Shadow had never heard to such innocuous words made to sound so damning. Shadow asks, Paul Bunyon? What’d he ever do?

Whiskey Jack replies, he took up head space, bumming a cigarette from Wed and the 2 men sitting and smoking. Wed explains, it’s like the idiots who figure hummingbirds worry about their weight or tooth decay or some such nonsense, maybe they only want to spare hummingbirds the evils of sugar. So they fill the hummingbird feeders with fucking NutraSweet. The birds come to the feeders and drink it, then they die, since their food contains no calories even though their little tummies are full.

This is Paul Bunyon for them, nobody ever told Paul Bunyon stories, nobody ever believed in Paul Bunyon. He came staggering out of a NY ad agency in 1910 and filled the nation’s myth stomach with empty calories. Whiskey Jack says, he likes Paul Bunyon, he went on his ride at the Mall of America, few years back. They see, big old Paul Bunyon at the top then one comes crashing down, splash.

He’s ok by him, he doesn’t mind he never existed, means he never cut down any trees. Not as good as planting trees though, this is better. Chapman says, he said a mouthful. Wed blew a smoke ring, which hung in the air like something from Warner Bros cartoon, dissipating slowly in wisps and curls.

Wed states, damn it Whiskey Jack, this isn’t the point and he knows it. Whiskey Jack replies, he’s not going to help him, when he gets his ass kicked, he can come back here and if he’s still here he’ll feed him again, we get the best food in the fall. Wed says, all the alternatives are worse. Whiskey Jack says, he has no idea what the alternatives are.

Then looks at Shadow and says, he’s hunting. His voice was cigarette-roughened, and it resonated in this space, smoky with leaking wood smoke and cigarettes. Shadow responds, he’s working, Whiskey Jack shaking his head, saying, he’s also hunting something, there’s a debt which he wishes to pay. Shadow thought of Laura’s blue lips and the blood on her hands, and he nodded.

Whiskey Jack says, listen, Fox was here first, and his brother was the wolf. Fox said, people will live forever. If they die they won’t die for long. Wolf said, no, people will die, people must die, all things which live must die, or they’ll spread and cover the world, and eat all the salmon and the caribou and buffalo, eat all the squash and corn.

Now one day Wolf died, and he said to the fox, quick, bring me back to life, and Fox said, no, the dead must stay dead, he convinced him, and he wept as he said this, but he said it, and it was final. Now Wolf rules the world of the dead and Fox lives always under the sun and the moon, and he still mourns his brother. Wed says, if he won’t play, he won’t play, we’ll be moving on. Whiskey Jack’s face is impassive saying, he’s talking to this young man, he’s beyond help, he is not.

He turns back to Shadow and says, he can’t come to him here unless he wishes it, you know. Shadow realizes he did know this, agreeing, yes. Whiskey Jack says, tell him his dream, Shadow responding, he was climbing a tower of skulls. There were huge birds flying around it.

They had lightning in their wings, and attacking him, the tower fell. Wed states, everybody dreams, can we hit the road? Whiskey Jack says, not everybody dreams of the Wakinyau, the thunderbirds, we felt the echoes of it here. Wed says, he told him, Jesus. Chapman says idly, there’s a clutch of thunderbirds in West Virginia.

A couple of hens and an old cock-bird at least. There’s also a breeding pair in the land, they used to call it the State of Franklin, but old Ben never got his state, up between KY and TN. Course, there was never a great number of them, even at the best of Times. Whiskey Jack reaches out a hand the color of the red day, and touches Shadow’s face, gently.

His irises were light brown banded with dark brown, and in this face those eyes seemed luminous. He says, eyah, it’s true. If he hunts the thunderbird he could bring his woman back, but she belongs to the wolf, in the dead places, not walking the land. Shadow asks, how does he know?

Whiskey Jack’s lips didn’t move, and asks, what did the Buffalo tell him? He answers, to believe. Whiskey Jack replies, good advice, is he going to follow it? Shadow says, kind of, he guesses.

They were talking without words, without mouths, without sound. Shadow wondered if, for the other to men in the room, they were standing, unmoving, for a heartbeat or fraction of a heartbeat. Whiskey Jack says, when he finds his tribe, come back and see him, he can help. Shadow replies, he shall.

Whiskey Jack lowered his hand, then turns to Wed and asks, is he going to fetch his Ho Chunk? Wed asks, his what? Whiskey Jack states, Ho Chunk. It’s what the Winnebago call themselves.

Wed shook his head saying, it’s too risky, retrieving it could be problematic, they’ll be looking for it. Whiskey Jack asks, is it stolen? Wed looked affronted, not a bit, the papers are in the glove compartment. Whiskey Jack asks, and the keys?

Shadow replies, he’s got them. Whiskey Jack says, his nephew, Harry Bluejay, has an ‘81 Buick. Why doesn’t he give him the keys to his camper? He can take his car.

Wed bristled, what kind of a trade is this? Whiskey Jack shrugged, he knew how hard it’ll be to bring back his camper from where he abandoned it? He’s doing him a favor. Take it or leave it, he doesn’t care.

He closed his knife-wound mouth, Wed looking angry, and then the anger became rue, and he said, Shadow, give the man the keys to the Winnebago. Shadow passes the car keys to Whiskey Jack. Whiskey Jack says, Johnny, will he take these men down to find Harry Bluejay? Tell him he said for him to give them his car.

Chapman says, be his pleasure. He got up and walked to the door, picked up a small Hessian sack sitting next to it, opened the door and walked outside. Shadow and Wed follow him, Whiskey Jack waiting in the doorway, hey, he says to Wed, don’t come back here, he’s not welcome. Wed extends his middle finger heavenward, and says affably, rotate on this.

They walked downhill through the snow, pushing their way through the drifts. Chapman walked in front, his bare feet red against the crust-topped snow. Shadow asks, isn’t he cold? Chapman replies, his wife is Choctaw.

Shadow asks, and she taught him the mystical ways to keep out the cold? Chapman states, nope, she thought he was crazy. She used t’say, ‘Johnny, why don’t you jes’ put on boots?‘. The slope of the hill became steeper, and they were forced to stop talking.

The 3 men stumble and slip on the snow, using the trunks of birch trees on the hillside to steady themselves, and to stop themselves from falling. When the ground became slightly more level, Chapman says, she’s dead now, a course. When she died he guesses maybe he went a mite crazy. It could happen to anyone, it could happen to him.

He claps Shadow on the arm and says, Jesus and Jehosophat, he’s a big man. Shadow replies, so they tell him. They trudge down the hill for another half an hour, until they reached the gravel road which wound around the base of it, and the 3 men start to walk along it, toward the cluster of buildings they’d seen from high on the hill. A car slows and stops, the woman driving it reached over, wound down the passenger window and asks, them bozos need a ride?

Wed replies, she’s very gracious, madam, we’re looking for a Mr. Harry Bluejay. The woman states, he’ll be down at the rec hall, she was in her 40s, Shadow guessed, she says, get in. They got in, Wed taking the passenger seat, Chapman and Shadow climbing in back. Shadow’s legs were too long to sit in back comfortably, but he did the best he could.

The car jolted forward, down the gravel road. The woman asks, so where did them 3 come from? Wed answers, just visiting with a friend, Shadow stating, lives on the hill back there. She asks, what hill?

Shadow looked back through the dusty rear window, looking back at the hill, but there was no high hill back there, nothing but clouds on the plain. He says, Whiskey Jack, she replies, ah, they call him Inktomi here, she thinks it’s the same guy. Her grandfather used to tell some pretty good stories about him. Of course, all the best of them were kind of dirty.

They hit a bump in the road, and the woman swore, and asks, they ok back there? Chapman replies, yes, ma’am, he holding on to the back seat with both hands. She says, rez roads, they get used to them, Shadow asking, are they all like this? The woman says, pretty much, all the one’s around here, and don’t he go asking about all the money from casinos, since who in there right mind wants to come all the way out here to go to a casino?

They don’t see none of this money out here. Shadow says, he’s sorry. She changes gears with a crash and groan, and says, don’t be, did he know the white population all around here is falling? He go out there, he’ll find ghost towns.

How they going to keep them down on the farm, after they seen the world on their TV screens? and it’s not worth anyone’s while to farm the Badlands anyhow. They took their lands they settled here, now they’re leaving. They go south and west, maybe if they wait for enough of them to move to NY and Miami and L.A., we can take the whole of the middle back without a fight. Shadow says, good luck, they finding Harry Bluejay in the rec hall, at the pool table, doing trick shots to impress a group of several girls.

He had a blue jay tattooed on the back of his right hand, and multiple piercings in his right ear. Chapman says, Ho Hoka, Harry Bluejay, Harry conversationally saying, fuck off, crazy barefoot white ghost, he gives him the creeps. There were older men at the far end of the room, some of them playing cards, some talking. There were other men, younger of about Bluejay’s age, waiting for their turn at the pool table.

It was a full-sized pool table, and a rip in the green baize on one side had been repaired with silver-gray duct tape. Chapman, unfazed says, he got a message from his uncle, he says he’s to give these 2 his car. There must’ve been 30, maybe even 40 people in this hall, and now they were every one of them looking intently at their playing cards, or their feet, or their fingernails, and pretending as hard as they could not to be listening. Bluejay replies, he’s not his uncle, a cigarette-smoke fug(?)(fog) hung over the hall like a cirrus cloud.

Chapman smiled widely, displaying the worst set of teeth Shadow had seen in a human mouth, and says, he want to tell his uncle this? He says he’s the only reason he stays among the Lakota. Bluejay petulantly replies, Whiskey Jack says a lot of things. He hadn’t said Whiskey Jack either, it sounding almost the same, to Shadow’s ear, but not quite: Wisakedjak, he thought.

This is what they’re saying, not Whiskey Jack at all. Shadow says, yeah, and one of the things he said was we’re trading their Winnebago, he knew he will. Bluejay attempts a trick shot and misses, his hand wasn’t steady enough, and says, he’s not the old fox’s nephew, he wished he wouldn’t say this to people. Wed states, better a live fox than a dead wolf, in a voice so deep it was almost a growl, continuing, now, will he sell them his car?

Bluejay shivers, visibly and violently, saying, sure, sure, he was only kidding, he kids a lot, him. He put down the pool cue on the pool table, and takes a thick jacket, pulling it out from a cluster of similar jackets hanging from pegs by the door, saying, let him get his shit out of the car first. He kept darting glances at Wed, as if he were concerned the older man was about to explode. Bluejay’s car was parked a hundred yards away, as they walk toward it, they pass a small whitewashed Catholic church, and a fair-haired man in a priest’s collar who stared at them from the doorway as they went past.

He was sucking on a cigarette as if he didn’t enjoy smoking it. Chapman greets, good day to him, father!, but the man in the dog-collar made no reply, crushing his cigarette under his heel, picking up the butt, and dropping it into the bin beside the door, going inside. Bluejay says, he told him not to give him those pamphlets last time he was here. Chapman replies, it’s him who’s in error, not him, if he’d jes read the Swedenborg he gave him he’d know this, it’d bring light into his life.

Bluejay’s car was missing its side mirrors, and its tires were the baldest Shadow had ever seen: perfectly smooth black rubber. Harry told them the car drank oil, but as long as they kept pouring oil in, it’d just keep running forever, unless it stopped. Bluejay filled a black garbage bag with shit from the car (said shit including several screw-top bottles of cheap beer, unfinished, a small packet of cannabis resin wrapped in silver foil and badly hidden in the car’s ashtray, a skunk-tail, 2 dozen country and western cassettes and a battered, yellowing copy of Stranger in a Strange Land). Bluejay says to Wed, sorry he was jerking his chain before, passing him the car keys, continuing, he knew when he’ll get the Winnebago?

Wed growls, ask his uncle, he’s the fucking used-car dealer. Bluejay replies, Wisakedjack is not his uncle, he took his black garbage bag and goes into the nearest house, and closes the door behind him. They drop Chapman in Sioux Falls, outside a whole-food store. Wed says nothing on the drive, brooding.

In a family restaurant just outside St. Paul Shadow picks up a newspaper someone else had put down. He looks at it once, then again, then shows it to Wed, he in a black suit, as he’d been since they left Whiskey Jack’s place. Shadow says, look at this, Wed sighing and looking down at the paper with an expression of pain, as if lowering his head hurt more than he could put into words. He says, he is delighted the air-traffic controllers’ dispute has been resolved without recourse to industrial action.

Shadow replies, not this, look. It says it’s the 14th of Feb. Wed states, happy Valentine’s Day, Shadow replying, so we set out Jan the what, 20th, 21st? He wasn’t keeping track of the dates, but it was the 3rd week of Jan. We were 3 days on the road, all told.

So how is it the 14 of Feb? Wed responds, because we walked for almost a month in the Badlands, Backstage. Shadow says, hell of a shortcut, Wed pushes the paper away and says, fucking Johnny Appleseed, always going on about Paul Bunyon. In real life Chapman owned 14 apple orchards.

He farmed thousands of acres. Yes, he kept pace with the western frontier, but there’s not a story out there about him with a word of truth in it, save he went a little crazy once, but it doesn’t matter. Like the newspapers used to say, if the truth isn’t big enough, print the legend. This country needs its legends, and even the legends don’t believe it anymore.

Shadow says, but he sees it. Wed replies, he’s a has-been, who the fuck cares about him? Shadow says softly, he’s a god. Wed looks at him sharply.

He seemed to be about to say something, and then slumps back in his seat, and looked down at the menu and said, so? Shadow replies, it’s a good thing to be a god, Wed asking, is it?, and this time it was Shadow who looked away. In a gas station 25 miles outside Lakeside, on the wall by the restrooms, Shadow saw a homemade photocopied notice: a black and white photo of Alison McGovern and the handwritten question Have You Seen Me? above it. Same yearbook photo: smiling confidently, a girl with rubber-band braces on her top teeth who wants to work with animals when she grows up.

Have You Seen Me? Shadow bought a Snickers bar, a bottle water, and a copy of the Lakeside News. The above-the-fold story, written by Marguerite Olsen, our Lakeside Reporter, showed a photo of a boy and an older man, out on the frozen lake, standing by an outhouse-like ice-fishing shack, and between them they were holding a big fish. They were smiling, Father and Son Catch Record Northern Pike. Full story inside.

Wed was driving, he says, read him anything interesting he finds in the paper. Shadow looks carefully, and he turns the pages slowly, but he couldn’t find anything. Wed drops him off in the driveway outside his apt. A smoke-colored cat stares at him from the driveway, then flees when he bent to stoke it.

Shadow stops on the wooden deck outside his apt and looked out at the lake, dotted here and there with green and brown ice-fishing huts. Many of them had cars parked beside them. On the ice nearer the bridge sat the old green klunker, just as it’d sat in the newspaper. Shadow says, encouragingly, Mar the 23rd, round 9:15 in the morning, it can do it.

A woman’s voice says, not a chance, Apr 23rd, 6 pm, this way the day warms up the ice. Shadow smiles, Marguerite is wearing a ski suit, at the far end of the deck, refilling the bird feeder with white blocks of suet. Shadow says, he read her article in the Lakeside News on the Town Record Northern Pike. Marguerite responds, exciting, huh?

Shadow replies, well, educational, maybe. She says, she thought he wasn’t coming back to them, he was gone for awhile, huh? Shadow states, his uncle needed him, the time kind of got away from them. She places the last suet brick in its cage, and starts to fill a net sock with thistle-seeds from a plastic milk-jug.

Several goldfinches, olive in their winter coats twittered impatiently from a nearby fir-tree. Shadow says, he didn’t see anything in the paper about Alison McGovern. Marge replies, there wasn’t anything to report, she’s still missing. There was a rumor someone had seen her in Detroit, but it turned out to be a false alarm.

Shadow states, poor kid. Marge screws the top back onto the gallon jug and says matter-of-factly, she hopes she’s dead. Shadow is shocked and asks, why? Marge responds, because the alternatives are worse.

The goldfinches hopped frantically from branch to branch of the fir tree, impatient for the people to be gone. A downy woodpecker joined them. Shadow thinks, she isn’t thinking about Alison, she’s thinking of her son, Sandy. He remembers someone saying, they miss Sandy.

Who was this? Shadow says, good talking to her, she replying, yeah, him too. Feb passed in a succession of short, gray days. Some days the snow fell, most days it didn’t.

The weather warmed up, and on the good days it got above freezing. Shadow stayed in his apt until it started to feel like a prison cell, then, on the days Wed didn’t need him, he started to walk. He’d walk for much of the day, long trudges out of the town. He walked, alone, until he reached the national forest to the north and west, on the corn fields and cow pastures to the south.

He walked the Lumber County Wilderness Trail, and he walked along the old railroad tracks, and he walked the back roads. A couple of times he even walked along the frozen lake, from north to south. Sometimes he’d see locals or winter tourists or joggers, and he’d wave and say hi. Mostly he saw nobody at all, just crows and finches, and a few times, he spotted a hawk feasting on a roadkill possum or raccoon.

On one memorable occasion he watched an eagle snatch a silver fish from the middle of the White Pine River, the water frozen at the edges, but still rushing and flowing at the center. The fish wriggled and jerked in the eagle’s talons, glittering in the midday sun. Shadow imagines the fish freeing itself and swimming off across the sky, and he smiled. If he walked, he discovered, he didn’t have to think, and this was just the way he liked it.

When he thought, his mind went to places he couldn’t control, places which made him feel uncomfortable. Exhaustion was the best thing. When he was exhausted, his thoughts didn’t wander to Laura, or to the strange dreams, or to things which weren’t and couldn’t be. He’d return home from walking, and sleep without difficulty, and without dreaming.

He ran into Chad in George’s Barber Shop in the town square. Shadow always had high hopes for haircuts, but they never lived up to his expectations. After every haircut he looked more or less the same, only with shorter hair. Chad, seated in the barber’s chair beside Shadow’s, seemed surprisingly concerned about his own appearance.

When his haircut was finished he gazed grimly at his reflection, as if he were preparing to give it a speeding ticket. Shadow tells him, it looks good. Chad asks, would it look good to him if he was a woman? Shadow replies, he guesses.

They went across the square to Mabel’s together, ordered mugs of hot chocolate, Chad saying, hey Mike, has he ever thought about a career in law enforcement? Shadow shrugs and says can’t say he has, he seems like there’s a whole lot of things he has to know. Chad shakes his head and asks, you know the main part of police work, somewhere like this?

It’s just keeping his head, something happens, somebody’s screaming at him, screaming blue murder, he simply has to be able to say he is sure it’s all a mistake, and he’ll just sort it all out if we just step outside quietly, and he has to be able to mean it. Shadow asks, and then he sorts it out? Chad replies, mostly, which is when he puts handcuffs on them, but yeah, he does what he can to sort it out. Let him know if he wants a job, we’re hiring, and he’s the kind of guy we want.

Shadow states, he’ll keep this in mind, if the thing with his uncle falls through. They sipped their hot chocolate, Chad asking, say, Mike, what would he do if he had a cousin? Like a widow, and she started calling him? Shadow asks, calling him how?

Chad replies, on the phone, long distance, she lives out of state. His cheeks crimson then says, he saw her last year at a family wedding, out in Oregon, she was married back then, though, he means, her husband was still alive, and she’s family. Not a 1st cousin, pretty distant. Shadow asks, he got a thing for her?

Blush and says, he doesn’t know about this. Shadow replies, well then, put it another way, does she have a thing for him? Chad states, well, she’s said a few things when she called, she’s a very fine-looking woman. Shadow asks, so… what’s he going to do about it?

Chad says, he could ask her out here, he could do this, couldn’t he? She’s kind of said she’d like to come up here. Shadow responds, they’re both adults, he’d say go for it. Chad nods and blushes, and nods again.

The phone in Shadow’s apt was silent and dead, he thought about getting it connected, but could think of no one he wanted to call. Late one night he picks it up and listens, and was convinced he could hear a wind blowing and a distant conversation between a group of people whose voices were too faint to distinguish. He says, hello? and, who’s there?, but there was no reply, only a sudden silence and then the faraway sound of laughter, so faint he wasn’t certain he wasn’t imagining it. Shadow made more journeys with Wed in the week’s which followed.

He waits in the kitchen of a Rhode Island cottage, and listens while Wed sat in a darkened bedroom and argues with a woman who wouldn’t get out of bed, nor would she let Wed or Shadow look at her face. In the fridge was a plastic bag filled with crickets, and another filled with corpses of baby mice. In a rock club in Seattle Shadow watches Wed shout his greeting, over the noise of the band, to a young woman with short red hair and blue-spiral tattoos. This talk must’ve gone well, for Wed came away from it grinning delightedly.

5 days later Shadow was waiting in the rental when Wed walked, scowling, from the lobby of an office building in Dallas. Wed slams the car door when he got in, and sits there in silence, his face red with rage. He says, drive, then he says, fucking Albanians, like anybody cares. 3 days after this, they fly to Boulder, where they had a pleasant lunch with 5 young Japanese women.

It was a meal of pleasantries and politeness, and Shadow walked away from it unsure of whether anything had been agreed to or decided. Wed, though, seemed happy enough. Shadow had started to look forward to returning to Lakeside. There was a peace there, and a welcome, which he appreciated.

Each morning, when he wasn’t away working for Wed he’d drive across the bridge to the town square. He’d buy 2 pastries at Mabel’s, he’d eat one pasty then and there, and drink a coffee. If someone’d left a newspaper out he’d read it, although he was never interested enough in the news to purchase a paper himself. He’d pocket the 2nd pasty, wrapped in its paper bag, and eat it for his lunch.

He was reading USA Today one morning when Mable said, hey Mike, where’s he going today? The sky was pale blue, the morning mist had left the trees covered with hoarfrost. Shadow says, he doesn’t know, maybe he’ll work the wilderness trail again. She refills his coffee and says, he ever gone east on County Q?

It’s kind of pretty out thataway. It’s the little road which starts acrost form the carpet store on 20th Ave. Shadow replies, no, never had. She says, well, it’s kind of pretty.

It was extremely pretty, Shadow parks his car at the edge of town, and walks along the side of the road, a winding, country road which curled around the hills to the east of the town. Each of the hills was covered with leafless maple trees, and bone - white birches, and dark firs and pines. There was no footpath, and Shadow walked along the middle of the road, making for the side whenever he heard a car. At one point a small dark cat kept pace with him beside the road it the color of dirt, with white forepaws.

He walked over to it, it not running away, Shadow greeting unselfconsciously, hey cat. The cat puts its head on one side, looked up at him with emerald eyes, then it hissed - not at him, but at something over on the side of the road, something he couldn’t see. Shadow says, easy, the cat stalking away across the road, and vanishing into a field of old unharvested corn. Around the next bend in the road Shadow came upon a tiny graveyard.

The headstones were weathered, although several of them had sprays of fresh flowers resting against them. There was no wall about the graveyard, and no fence, only low mulberry trees, planted at the margins, bent over with ice and age. Shadow stepped over the piled-up ice and slush at the side of the road. There were to stone gateposts marking the entry to the graveyard, although there was no gate between them.

He walked into the graveyard between the 2 posts, wandering around, looking at the headstones. There were no inscriptions later than 1969, he brushing the snow from a solid-looking granite angel, and leaning against it. He took the paper bag from his pocket, and removed the pasty from it, breaking off the top: it breathing a faint wisp of steam into the wintry air, smelling really good, too as he bit into it. Something rustled behind him, he thinking for a moment it was the cat, but then smelling perfume, and underneath, the scent of something rotten.

She says from behind him, please don’t look at her, he greets, hello, Laura. Her voice was hesitant, perhaps, he thought, even a little scared, she saying, hello, puppy. He broke off some pasty and asks, would she like some? She was standing immediately behind him, now and says, no, he can eat it, she doesn’t eat food anymore.

He ate his pasty, it was good, and says, he wants to look at her, she replying, he won’t like it, he asks, please? She steps around the stone angel, Shadow looking at her in the daylight, some things were different and some the same. Her eyes hadn’t changed, nor had the cracked hopefulness of her smile, and she was, very obviously, dead. Shadow finished his pasty, and standing up and tipping the crumbs out of the paper bag, then folding it up and putting it back into his pocket.

The time he’d spent in the funeral home in Cairo made it easier somehow for him to be in her presence; he didn’t know what to say to her. Her cold hand sought his, and he squeezed it gently. He could feel his heart beating in his chest. He was scared, and what scared him was the normality of the moment.

He felt so comfortable with her at his side he would’ve been willing to stand there forever. He admits, he misses her, she replying, she’s here. He responds, this is when he misses her most, when she’s here. When she isn’t here, when she’s just a ghost from the past or a dream from another life, it’s easier then.

She squeezes his fingers, he asking, so, how’s death? She replies, hard, it just keeps going. She rested her head on his shoulder, and it almost undid him, he asking, she want to walk for a bit? She replies, sure, smiling up at him, a nervous, crooked smile in a dead face.

They walked out of the little graveyard, and make their way back down the road, toward the town, hand in hand, she asking, where’s he been? He replying, here, mostly. She states, since Xmas, she kind of lost him, sometimes she’d know where he was, for a few hours, for a few days, he’d been all over, then he’d fade away again. Shadow says, he was in this town, Lakeside, it’s a good little town.

She replies, oh, she no longer wearing the blue dress in which she’d been buried. Now she wore several sweaters, a long, dark, skirt, and burgundy boots, Shadow commenting on them. Laura ducks her head, smiling, and asks, aren’t they great boots? She found them in this great shoe store in Chicago.

He asks, so what made her decide to come up from Chicago? She replies, oh, she’s not been in Chicago for awhile, puppy. She was heading south, the cold bothering her, he’d think she’d welcome it, but it’s something to do with being dead, she guesses. She doesn’t feel it as cold, she feels it as a sort of nothing, and when one’s dead, she guesses the only thing she’s scared of is nothing.

She was going to go to TX, planned to spend the winter in Galveston, she thinks she used to winter in Galveston when she was a kid. Shadow replies, he doesn’t think she had, she’d never mentioned it before. She asks, no? Maybe it was someone else, then, she doesn’t know.

She remembers seagulls - throwing bread in the air for gulls, hundreds of them. The whole sky becoming nothing but gulls as they flapped their wings and snatched the bread from the air. She pauses, then says, if she didn’t see it, she guesses someone else had. A car came around the corner and the driver waved them hello, Shadow waving back.

It felt wonderfully normal to walk with his wife, Laura says as if she was reading his mind, this feels good. Shadow agrees, yes, she stating, she’s pleased it feels good for him, too. When the call came She had to hurry back, she was barely into TX. He asks, call?

She looked up at him, around her neck the gold coin glinted and she says, it felt like a call. She started to think about him, about how much more fun she’d have with him then down in Galveston. About how much she needed to see him, it was like a hunger. Shadow asks, she knew he was here then?

She stops and says, yes, frowning, her upper teeth pressed into her blue lower lip, biting it gently. She put her head on one side and says, she did, suddenly she did, she thought he was calling her, but it wasn’t him, was it? Shadow says, no, he replying, he didn’t want to see her, he hesitates and says, it wasn’t this, no, he didn’t want to see her, it hurts too much. The snow crunched beneath their feet and it glittered diamonds as the sunlight caught it.

Laura says, it must be hard not being alive. Shadow asks, she means it’s hard for her to be dead? Look, he’s still going to figure out how to bring her back, properly. He thinks he’s on the right track - she says, no, she means, she’s grateful, and she hopes he really can do it, she did a lot of bad stuff… shaking her head and continues, but she was talking about him.

Shadow replies, he’s alive, he’s not dead, remember? She states, he’s not dead, but she’s not sure he’s alive, either, not really. This isn’t the way this conversation goes, thinks Shadow, this isn’t the way anything goes. She says dispassionately, she loves him, he’s her puppy, but when he’s really dead he’ll get to see things clearer.

It’s like there isn’t anyone there, he’s like this big, solid, man-shaped hole in the world. She frowned and continued, even when we were together, she loved being with him because he adored her, and he’d do anything for her, but sometimes she’d go into a room and she wouldn’t think there was anybody in there, and she’d turn the light on, or she’d turn the light off, and she’d realize he was in there, sitting on his own, not reading, not watching TV, not doing anything. She hugged him then, as if to take the sting from her words, and she says, the best thing about Robbie was he was somebody. He was a jerk sometimes, and he could be a joke, and he loved to have mirrors around when we made love so he could watch himself fucking her, but he was alive, puppy.

He wanted things, he filled the space. She stops and looks up at him, tipped her head a little to one side and says, she’s sorry, did she hurt his feelings? He didn’t trust his voice not to betray him, so he simply shook his head, she replying, good, this is good. They were approaching the rest area where he’d parked his car.

Shadow felt he needed to say something: He loves her, or please don’t go, or he’s sorry. The kind of words used to patch a conversation which had lurched, without warning, into the dark places. Instead he said, he’s not dead, she responding, maybe not, but is he sure he’s alive? Shadow says, well, she’s seen him now, she’s going south again, he asks, back to TX?

She replies, somewhere warm, she doesn’t care. Shadow states, he has to wait here until his boss needs him. Laura says, this isn’t living, she sighs, then smiles the same smile which had been able to tug at his heart no matter how many times he saw it. Every time she smiled at him had been the first time all over again.

He asks, will he see her again? She looks up at him and stops smiling, saying, she guesses so. In the end, nothing’s finished yet, is it? He replies, no, it’s not, and goes to put his arm around her, but she shook her head and pulls out of his reach. She sits down on the edge of a snow-covered picnic table and watches him drive away.

Interlude 1

The war had started and nobody saw it, the storm lowering and nobody knew it. Wars are fought all the time, with the world outside no more wiser: the war on crime, poverty, drugs. This war was smaller than those, and huger, and more selective, but it was as real as any. A falling girder in Manhattan closed a street for 2 days.

It killed 2 pedestrians, an Arabic taxi-driver and his passenger. A trucker in Denver was found dead in his home, the murder instrument, a rubber-gripped claw-headed hammer, left on the floor beside his corpse. His face was untouched, but the back of his head was completely destroyed, and several words in a foreign alphabet were written on the bathroom mirror in brown lipstick. In a postal sorting station in Phoenix, AZ, a man went crazy, went postal as they said on the evening new, and shot Terry ‘The Troll‘ Evensen, a morbidly obese, awkward man who lived alone in a trailer.

Several other people in the sorting station were fired on, but only Evensen was killed. The man who fired the shots - first thought to be a disgruntled postal worker - wasn’t caught, and was never ID’d. Terry’s supervisor says on the News at Five, frankly if anyone around there was gonna go postal, we’d have figured it was gonna be The Troll. Ok worker, but weird guy, he means, one never can tell, huh?

This interview was cut when the segment was repeated, later this evening. A community of 9 anchorites in Montana were found dead, reporters speculating it was a mass suicide, but soon the cause of death reported as carbon monoxide poisoning from an elderly furnace. A lobster tank was smashed in the lobby of an Atlanta seafood restaurant, a crypt defiled in the Key West graveyard. An Amtrak passenger train hit a UPS truck in Idaho, killing the driver of the truck, no passengers seriously injured.

It was still a cold war at this stage, a phony war, nothing which could be truly won or lost. The wind stirred the branches of the tree, sparks flying from the fire; the storm was coming. The Queen of Sheba, half-demon, they said, on her father’s side, witch-woman, wise-woman and queen, who rules Sheba when Sheba was the richest land there ever was, when its spices and its gems and scented woods were taken by boat and camel-back to the corner of the earth, who was worshiped even when she was alive, worshiped as a living goddess by the wisest of kings, stands on the sidewalk of Sunset Blvd at 2 am staring blankly out at the traffic like a slutty plastic bride on a black and neon wedding cake. She stands as if she owns the sidewalk and the night which surrounds her. When someone looks straight at her, her lips move, as if she’s talking to herself.

When men in cars drive past her she makes eye-contact and smiles. She ignores the men who walk past her on the sidewalk (it happens, people walk everywhere, even in West Hollywood); she ignores them, and does her best to pretend they’re not there. It’s been a long night, it’s been a long week, and a long 4 thousand years. She’s proud she owes nothing to anyone, the other girls on the street, they have pimps, they have habits, they have children, they have people who take what they made, not her.

There’s nothing holy left in her profession, not anymore. A week ago the rains started in L.A., slicking the streets into road accidents, crumbling the mud from the hillsides and toppling houses into cyns, washing the world into the gutters and storm drains, drowning the bums and the homeless camped down in the concrete channel of the river. When the rains come in L.A. they always take people by surprise. Bilquis has spent the last week inside, unable to stand on the sidewalk.

She has curled up in her bed in the room the color of raw liver, listening to the rain pattering on the metal box of the window a/c and placing personals on the internet. She has left her invitations on Adultfriendfinder.com, LA-escorts.com, Classyhollywoodbabes.com, has given herself an anonymous email address. She was proud of herself for negotiating the new territories, but remain nervous - she has spent a long time avoiding anything which might resemble a paper trail. She has never even taken a small ad in the back pages of the LA Weekly, preferring to pick out her own customers, to find by eye and smell and touch the one’s who will worship her as she needs to be worshipped, the one’s who’ll let her take them all the way… and it occurs to her now, standing and shivering on the street corner (for the late Feb rains have left off, but the chill they brought with them remains), she has a habit as bad as the smack whores and the crack whores, and this distresses her, and her lips start to move again.

If close enough to her ruby-red lips it could be heard her saying, she’ll rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways she’ll seek the one she loves. She’s whispering this, and she whispers, she is her beloved’s, and her beloved is hers. He said, this stature of hers is like to a palm tree, and her breasts like clusters of grapes. He said he’d come to her then. She’s her beloved’s and his desire is only toward her.

Bilquis hopes the break in the rains will bring the johns back. Most of the year she walks the 2 or 3 blocks on Sunset, enjoying the cool L.A. nights. Once a month she pays off a man named Sabbah, an officer in the LAPD, who replaced another she used to pay off, who had vanished. His name was Jerry LeBec, and his disappearance had been a mystery to the LAPD.

He’d become obsessed with Bilquis, had taken to following her on foot, and one noon she woke, startled by a noise, and opened the door to her apt, and found Jerry LeBec in civilian clothes kneeling and swaying on the worn carpet. His head bowed, waiting for her to come out. The noise she’d heard was the sound of his head, thumping against her door as he rocked back and forth on his knees. She stroked his hair and told him to come inside, and later she put his clothes into a black plastic garbage bag and tossed them into a dumpster behind a hotel several blocks away.

His gun and wallet she put into a grocery store bag. She poured used coffee grounds and food waste on top of them, folded the top of the bag and dropped it into a trashcan at a bus-stop. She kept no souvenirs. The orange night-sky glimmers to the west with distant lightning, somewhere out to sea, and Bilquis knows the rain will be starting soon, she sighs.

She doesn’t want to be caught in the rain, she’ll return to her apt, she decides, and take a bath and shave her legs, it seems to her she’s always shaving her legs, and sleep. She whispers, by night on her bed she seeks him who her soul loveth, let him kiss her with the kisses of his mouth. Her beloved is hers and she is his. She starts to walk up a side street, walking up the hillside to where her car is parked.

Headlights come up behind her, slowing as they approach her, and she turns her face to the street and smiles. The smile freezes when she sees the car is a white stretch limo. Men in stretch limos want to fuck in stretch limos, not in the privacy of Bilquis’ shrine. Still, it might be an investment, something for the future.

A tinted window hums down and Bilquis walks over to the limo, smiling, and says, hey honey, they looking for something? A voice from the back of the stretch says, sweet loving. She peers inside, as much as she can through the open window: she knows a girl who got into a stretch with 5 drunk football players and got hurt real bad, but there’s only one john in there which she can see, and he looks kind of on the young side. He doesn’t feel like a worshipper, but money, good money which’s passed from his hand to hers, this is an energy in its own right - baraka they called it, once on a time - which she can use and frankly these days, every little helps.

He asks, how much? She replies, depends on what he wants and how long he wants it for, and whether he can afford it. She can smell something smoky drifting out of the limo window. It smells like burning wires and overheating circuit boards, the door is pushed open from inside.

The john says, he can pay for anything he wants. She leans into the car and looks around, there’s nobody else in there, only the john, a puffy-faced kid who doesn’t even look old enough to drink. Nobody else, so she gets in, and says, rich kid, huh? He replies to her, richer than rich, edging along the leather seat towards her, he moving awkwardly, and she smiles at him.

She tells him, mm, makes her hot, honey, he must be one of the dot-coms she reads about? He preens then, puffs like a bullfrog and says, yeah, among other things. He’s a technical boy, the car moving off. He says, so, tell him, Bilquis, how much just to suck his cock?

She asks, what he call her? He says again, Bilquis, and then he sings, in a voice not made for singing, she’s an immaterial girl living in a material world. There’s something rehearsed about his words, as if he’s practiced this exchange in front of a mirror. She stops smiling, and her face changes, becomes wiser, sharper, harder, and asks, what does he want?

He repeats, he told her, sweet loving. She replies, she’ll give him whatever he wants, she needed to get out of the limo, it moving too fast for her to throw herself from the car, she figured, but she’ll do it if she can’t talk her way out of this. Whatever’s happening here, she didn’t like it, he says, what he wants, yes, then pauses. His tongue runs over his lips and says, he wants a clean world, he wants to own tomorrow.

He wants evolution, devolution, and revolution, he wants to move their kind from the fringes of the slipstream to the higher ground of the mainstream. Her people are underground, this is wrong, they need to take the spotlight and shine, front and center. Her people have been so far underground for so long they’ve lost the use of their eyes. She says, her name’s Ayesha, she doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

There’s another girl on the corner, her name Bilquis. We could go back to Sunset, he could have both of us… He replies, oh, Bilquis, and sighs, theatrically, then continues, there’s only so much belief to go around. We’re reaching the end of what they can give them, the credibility gap, and then he sings, once again, in his tuneless nasal voice, She’s an analog girl, living in a digital world.

The limo takes a corner too fast, and he tumbles across the seat into her. The driver of the car is hidden behind tinted glass. An irrational conviction strikes her, nobody’s driving the car, the white limo is driving through Beverly Hills like Herbie the Love Bug, under its own power. Then the john reaches out his hand and taps the tinted glass.

The car slows, and before its stopped moving Bilquis has pushed open the door and half-jumps, half-falls out onto the blacktop. She’s on a hillside road, to the left of her is a steep hill, to the right is a sheer drop, she starts to run down the road. The limo sits there, unmoving, it starts to rain, and her high heels slip and twist beneath her. She kicks them off and runs, soaked to the skin, looking for somewhere she can get off the road, she’s scared.

She has power, true, but it’s hunger-magic, cunt-magic, it keeping her alive in this land for so long, but for everything else which isn’t simply living she uses her sharp eyes and her mind, her height and her presence. There’s a metal guard-rail at knee-height on her right, to stop cars from tumbling over the side of the hill, and now the rain is running down the hill-road turning it into a river, and the soles of her feet have started to bleed. The lights of L.A. are spread out in front of her, a twinkling electrical map of an imaginary kingdom, the heavens laid out right here on earth, and she knows all she needs to be safe is to get off the road.

She mouths to the night and the rain, she’s black but comely, she’s the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. Stay her with flagons, comfort her with apples: for she is sick of love. A fork of lightning burns greenly across the night sky. She loses her footing, slides several feet, skinning her legs and elbow, and she’s getting to her feet when she sees the lights of the car descending the hill toward her.

It’s coming down too fast for safety and she wonders whether to throw herself to the right, where it could crush her against the hillside, or the left, where she might tumble down the gully, and she runs across the road, intending to push herself up the wet earth, to climb, when the white stretch limo comes fishtailing down the slick hillside road. Hell it must be doing 80, maybe even aquaplaning on the surface of the road, and she’s pushing her hands into a handful of weeds and earth, and she’s going to get up and away, you know, when the wet earth crumbles and she tumbles back down onto the road. The car hits her with an impact which crumples the grille and tosses her into the air like a glove puppet.

She lands on the road behind the limo, and the impact shatters her pelvis, fractures her skull. Cold rainwater runs over her face, she starting to curse her killer: curse him silently, as she can’t move her lips. She curses him in waking and in sleeping, in living and in death. She curses him as only someone who is half-demon on her father’s side can curse.

A car door opens, someone approaching her, he again singing, tunelessly, she was an analog girl living in a digital world, and then he says, fucking madonnas, all them fucking madonnas, he walking away. The car door slams, the limo reverses, and runs back over her, slowly, for the first time, her bones crunching beneath the wheels. Then the limo comes back down the hill toward her. When, finally, it drives away, down the hill, all it leaves behind on the road is the smeared red meat of roadkill, barely recognizable as human, and soon even this will be washed away by the rain.

Interlude 2

Mags greets, hi Samantha, she replying, Mags? Is this her? The response, who else? Leon said Auntie Sammy called when she was in the shower. Sammy says, they had a good talk, he’s such a sweet kid. Mags replies, yeah, she thinks she’ll keep him.

A moment of discomfort for both of them, barely a crackle of a whisper over the phone lines, then, Sammy, how’s school? She responds, they’re giving us a week off. Problem with the furnaces, how’re things in her neck of the Northwoods? Mags replies, well, she’s got a new next-door neighbor, he does coin tricks.

The Lakeside News letter column currently features a blistering debate on the potential of rezoning of the town land down by the old cemetery on the southeast shore of the lake and hers truly has to write a strident editorial summarizing the paper’s position on this without offending anybody or in fact giving anyone any idea what their position is. Sammy replies, sounds like fun, Mags responding, it’s not, Alison McGovern vanished last week - Jilly and Stan McGovern’s oldest, she doesn’t think she met them. Nice kid, she babysat for Leon a few times. A mouth opens to say something, and it closes again, leaving whatever it was to say unsaid, and instead it says, this is awful.

The reply, yes, and there’s nothing to follow the response of, so, with which isn’t going to hurt, so she asks, is he cute? Mags asks, who? The reply, the neighbor, Mags stating, his name’s Ainsel. Mike Ainsel, he’s ok, too young for her, big guy, looks…what’s the word.

Starts with an M. Sammy suggests, mean? Moody? Magnificent? Married? A short laugh, then, yes, she guesses he does look married. She means, if there’s a look married men have, he kind of has it, but the word she was thinking of was melancholy. He looks melancholy. Sammy asks, and mysterious?

Mags replies, not particularly, when he moved in he seemed kinda helpless - he didn’t even know how to heat-seal the windows. These days he still looks like he doesn’t know what he’s doing here. When he’s here - he’s here, then he’s gone again. She’s seen him out walking from time to time, he’s no trouble.

Sammy says, maybe he’s a bank robber. Mags agrees, uh-huh, just what she was thinking. Sammy replies, she was not, this was her idea. Listen, Mags, how is she? Is she okay?

Mags replies, yeah, Sammy asks, really? Mags response, no, a long pause then Sammy states, she’s coming up to see her, Mags replying, Sammy, no. Sammy replies, it’ll be after the weekend before the furnaces are working and school starts again, it’ll be fun. She can make up a bed on the couch for her, and invite the mysterious neighbor over for dinner one night.

Mags states, Sam, she’s matchmaking. Sam states, who’s matchmaking? After Claudine-the-bitch-from-hell, maybe she’s ready to go back to boys for awhile. She met a nice strange boy when she hitchhiked down to El Paso for Xmas.

Mags replies, oh, look, Sam, she’s got to stop hitchhiking. Sam asks, how does she think she’s going to get to Lakeside? Mags replies, Alison McGovern was hitching, even in a town like this, it’s not safe, she’ll wire her the money, she can take the bus. Sam states, she’ll be fine, Mags insists, Sammy.

Sam relents, okay, Mags, wire her the money if it’ll let her sleep easier. Mags responds, she knows it will, Sam replies, ok, busy big sis, give Leon a hug and tell him Auntie Sammy’s coming up and he’s not to hide his toys in her bed this time. Mags replies, she’ll tell him, she doesn’t promise it’ll do any good. So when should she expect her?

Sam states, tomorrow night. She doesn’t have to meet her at the bus station - she’ll ask Hinz to run her over in Tessie. Mags replies, too late, Tessie’s in mothballs for the winter, but Hinz will give her a ride anywas, he likes her, she listens to his stories. Sam suggests, maybe she should get Hinz to write her editorial for her, let’s see.

On the Rezoning of the Land by the Old Cemetery, it so happens in the winter of ought 3 his grandpaw shot a stag down by the old cemetery by the lake. He was out of bullets, so he used a cherry-stone from the lunch his grandmama had packed for him. Creased the skull of the stag and it shot off like a bat out of heck. 2 years later he was down this way and he sees this mighty buck with a spreading cherry tree growing between its antlers. Well, he shot it, and grandmama made cherry pies enough they were still eating them come the next Fourth of July…, and they both laughed then.

Interlude 3

Jacksonville, FL 2 am. Someone says, the sign says ‘help wanted‘. The reply, we’re always hiring. The person responds, they can only work the night shift, is this going to be a problem? The reply, shouldn’t be, they can get them an application to fill out. They ever work in a gas station before?

They answer, no, they figured, how hard could it be? The reply, well, it ain’t rocket science, this is for sure. The person states, they’re new here, they don’t have a phone, waiting for them to put it in. The reply, they surely know this one, they surely do.

They only make one wait because they can. You know, ma’am, she don’t mind them saying this, but she doesn’t look well. She says, she knows, it’s a medical condition, looks worse than it is, nothing life-threatening. They say, okay, she can leave this application with them, we’re really short-handed on the late shift right now.

Round here we call it the zombie shift. She do it too long, this is how she’ll feel. Well now… is this Larna? She corrects, Laura, they reply, Laura, okay, well, they hope she doesn’t mind dealing with weirdos, since they come out at night.

Laura states, she’s sure they do, she can cope. It was Saturday morning, Shadow answers the door, Mags is there. She doesn’t come in, just stands there in the sunlight, looking serious, Mr. Ainsel…? Shadow says, Mike, please, she replies, Mike, yes.

Would he like to come over for dinner tonight? About 6-ish? It won’t be anything exciting, just spaghetti and meatballs. Shadow says, not a problem, he likes spaghetti and meatballs, she replying, obviously, if he has any other plans… He replies, he has no other plans.

She repeats, 6 o’clock, he asks, should he bring flowers? Mags replies, if he must, but this is a social gesture, not a romantic one, she closes the door behind her. He showers, goes for a short walk, down to the bridge and back. The sun was up, a tarnished quarter in the sky, and he was sweating in his coat by the time he got home.

It had to be above freezing, he driving the 4Runner down to Dave’s Finest Foods and buys a bottle of wine. It was a $20 bottle, which seemed to Shadow like some kind of guarantee of quality. He didn’t know wines, but he figured for 20 bucks it ought to taste good. He bought a Californian Cabernet, since Shadow had once seen a bumper sticker, back when he was younger and people still had bumper stickers on their cars, which said LIFE IS A CABERNET and it’d made him laugh.

He bought a plant in a pot as a gift, green leaves, no flowers. Nothing remotely romantic about this. He bought a carton of milk, which he would never drink, and a selection of fruit, which he’d never eat. Then he drove over to Mabel’s and bought a single lunchtime pasty.

Mabel’s face lit up when she saw him and asks, did Hinz catch up with him? Shadow replies, he didn’t know he was looking for him. Mabel states, yup, wats to take him ice-fishing, and Chad wanted to know if she’d seen him around. His cousin’s here from out of state, she’s a widow.

His 2nd cousin, what they used to call kissing cousins. Such a sweetheart, he’ll love her. She drops the pasty into a brown paper bag, twisted the top of the bag over to keep the pasty warm. Shadow drove the long way home, eating one-handed, the steaming pasty’s pastry-crumbs tumbling onto his jeans and onto the floor of the 4Runner.

He passed the library on the south shore of the lake. It was a black and white town in the ice and snow. Spring seemed unimaginably far away: the klunker would always sit on the ice, with the ice-fishing shelters and the pickup trucks and the snowmobile tracks. He reached his apt, parked, walked up the drive, up the wooden steps to his apt.

The goldfinches and nuthatches on the bird feeder hardly gave him a glance. He went inside, watered the plant, wondered whether or not to put the wine into the fridge. There was a lot of time to kill until 6. Shadow wished he could comfortably watch TV once more.

He wanted to be entertained, not have to think, just to sit and let the sounds and the light wash over him. Do you want to see Lucy’s tits? something with a Lucy voice whispered in his memory, and he shook his head, although there was no one there to see him. He was nervous, he realized, this would be his first real social interaction with other people - normal people, not people in jail, not gods or culture herpes or dreams - since he was first arrested, over 3 years ago. He’d have to make conversation, as Mike Ainsel, he checks his watch.

It was 2:30, Mags had told him to be there at 6, did she mean 6 exactly? Should he be there a little early? A little late? He decoded, eventually, to walk next door at 5 past 6. Shadow’s phone rang, he says, yeah?

Wed growls, this is no way to answer the phone. Shadow says, when he gets his phone connected he’ll answer it politely. Can he help him? Wed replies, he doesn’t know.

There was a pause, then he says, organizing gods is like herding cats into straight lines. They don’t take naturally to it. There was a deadness, and an exhaustion, in Wed’s voice which Shadow had never heard before. He asks, what’s wrong?

Wed replies, it’s hard, it’s too fucking hard. He doesn’t know if this is going to work. We may as well cut our throats. Just cut our own throats. Shadow states, he mustn’t talk like this.

Wed replies, yeah. Right. Shadow says, trying to jolly Wed out of his darkness says, well, if he does cut his throat, maybe it wouldn’t even hurt. Wed responds, it’d hurt, even for his kind, pain still hurts. If one moves and acts in the material world, then the material world acts on one.

Pain hurts, just as greed intoxicates and lust burns. We may not die easy and we sure as hell don’t die well, but we can die. If we’re still loved and remembered, something else a whole lot like them comes along and takes their place and the whole damn thing starts all over again, and if we’re forgotten, we’re done. Shadow didn’t know what to say, so asks, so where is he calling from?

Wed replies, none of his goddamn business. Shadow asks, is he drunk? Wed responds, not yet, he just kept thinking about Thor, he never knew him, big guy, like him, goodhearted. Not bright, but he’d give him the goddamned shirt off his back if he asked him, and he killed himself.

He put a gun in his mouth and blew his head off in Philly in 1932. What kind of a way is this for a god to die? Shadow replies, he’s sorry. Wed states, he doesn’t give 2 fucking cents, son. He was a whole lot like him. Big and dumb, Wed stops talking, then coughed.

Shadow asks for the 2nd time, what’s wrong? Wed states, they want to discuss a truce, peace talks. Live and let fucking live. Shadow asks, so what happens now? Wed replies, now he goes and drinks bad coffee with the modern assholes in KS City Masonic hall.

Shadow replies, ok, he going to pick him up, or shall he meet him somewhere? Wed responds, he stay there and keep his head down. Don’t get into any trouble, he hear him? Shadow says, but - and there’s a click, and the line goes dead and stays dead.

There was no dial tone, but then, there never was. Nothing but time to kill, the conversation with Wed had left Shadow with a sense of disquiet. He got up, intending to go for a walk, but already the light was fading, and he sat back down. Shadow picked up the Mins of the Lakeside City Council 1872-1884 and turned the pages, his eyes scanning the tiny print, not actually reading it, occasionally scanning something which caught his eye.

In July of 1874, Shadow learned, the city council was concerned about the number of itinerant foreign loggers arriving in the town. An open house was to be built on the corner of Third St and Broadway. It was to be expected the nuisances attendant to the damming of Mill Creek would abate once the mill-pond had become a lake. The council authorized the payment of 70 dollars to Mr. Samuel Samuels, and of 85 dollars to Mr. Heikki Salminen, in compensation for their land and for the expenses incurred in moving their domiciles out of the area to be flooded.

It’d never occurred to Shadow before the lake was man-made. Why call a town Lakeside, when the lake had begun as a dammed mill-pond? He read on, to discover a Mr. Hinz, originally of Hüdemuhlen in Brunswick, was in charge of the lake-building project, and the city council had granted him the sum of $370 toward the project, any shortfall to be made up by public subscription. Shadow tore off a strip of a paper towel and placed it into the book as a bookmark.

He could imagine Hinz’s pleasure in seeing the reference to his grandfather. He wondered if the old men knew his family had been instrumental in building the lake. Shadow flipped forward through the book, scanning for more references to the lake building project. They’d dedicated the lake in a ceremony in the spring of 1876, as a precursor to the town’s centennial celebrations.

A vote of thanks to Mr. Hinz was taken by the council. Shadow checked his watch, it now 5:30, he going into the bathroom, shaved, combed his hair, changed his clothes. Somehow the final 15 minutes passed, he got the wine and plant, and walked next door. The door opened as he knocked, Mags looking almost as nervous as he felt.

She took the wine bottle and potted plant, and said thank you. The TV was on, The Wizard of Oz on video, it was still in sepia, and Dorothy was still in KS, sitting with her eyes closed in Professor Marvel’s wagon as the old fraud pretended to read her mind, and the twister-wind which would tear her away from her life was approaching. Leon sat in front of the screen, playing with a toy firetruck. When he saw Shadow an expression of delight touched his face; he stood up and ran, tripping over his feet in his excitement, into a back bedroom, from which he emerged a moment later, triumphantly waving a quarter.

He shouts, watch Mike Ainsel! Then he closed both his hands and he pretended to take the coin into his right hand, which he opened wide, and says, he made it disappear, Mike Ainsel! Shadow agrees, he did, after we’ve eaten, if it’s ok with his mom, he’ll show him how to do it even smoother than this. Mags says, do it now if he wants, we’re still waiting for Samantha.

She sent her out for sour cream, she doesn’t know what’s taking her so long, and as if this was her cue, footsteps sounded on the wooden deck, and somebody shouldered open the front door. Shadow didn’t recognize her at first, then she said, she didn’t know if she wanted the kind with calories or the kind which tastes like wallpaper paste so she went for the kind with calories, and he knew her then: the girl from the road to Cairo. Mags says, this is fine, Sam, this is her neighbor, Mike Ainsel. Mike, this is Samantha Black Crow, her sister.

Shadow thought desperately, he doesn’t know her, she’s never met him before, they’re total strangers. He tried to remember how he’d thought snow, how easy and light this had been: this was desperate. He put out his hand and said, pleased to meetcha. She blinked, looked up at his face, a moment of puzzlement, then recognition entered her eyes and curved the corners of her mouth into a grin, greeting, hello.

Mags says in a taut voice of someone who burns things in kitchens if they leave them alone and untouched even for a moment, she’ll see how the food is doing. Sam took off her puffy coat and her hat and says, so he’s the melancholy but mysterious neighbor, who’d a thunk it? She kept her voice down. He replies, and she is girl Sam, can we talk about this later?

She replies, if he promises to tell her what’s going on. Shadow agrees, deal. Leon tugged at the leg of Shadow’s pants and asks, holding out his quarter, will he show him now? Shadow agrees, ok, but if he shows him, he has to remember a master magician never tells anyone how it’s done.

Leon says gravely, he promises. Shadow took the coin in his left hand, then moved Leon’s right hand in, cupping it in his own hand, huge by comparison, showing him how to appear to take the coin in his right hand while actually leaving it in Shadow’s left hand. Then he put the coin into Leon’s left hand and made him repeat the movements on his own. After several attempts the boy mastered the move.

Shadow says, now he knew half of it, since the moves are only half of it. The other half is this: put his attention on the place where the coin ought to be. Look at the place it’s meant to be. Follow it with his eyes, if he acts like it’s in his right hand, no one will even look at his left hand, no matter how clumsy he is.

Sam watched all this with her head tipped slightly on one side, saying nothing. Mags calls, dinner! pushing her way in from the kitchen with a steaming bowl of spaghetti in her hands, and says, Leon, go wash his hands. the food was good; crusty garlic bread, thick red sauce, good spicy meatballs, Shadow complementing Mags on it. She tells him, old family recipe from the Corsican side of the family.

Shadow replies, he thought she was Native American. Sam states, Dad’s Cherokee, Mag’s mom’s father came from Corsica. Sam was the only person in the room who was actually drinking the Cabernet and continues, Dad left her when Mags was 10 and he moved across town. 6 months after this, she was born. Mom and Dad got married when the divorce came through and she thinks they tried to make it work for a while, and when she was 10 he went away.

She thinks he has a 10-year attention span. Mags says, well, he’s been out in OK for 10 years. Sam continues, now, her mom’s family were European Jew from one of those places which used to be communist and now are only chaos. She thinks she liked the idea of being married to a Cherokee.

Frybread and chopped liver, Sam takes another sip of the red wine. Mags says, semi-approvingly, her mom’s a wild woman, Sam asked, he know where she is now? Shadow shook his head. Sam states, she’s in Australia, she met a guy on the Internet, who lived in Hobart.

When they met in the flesh she decided he was actually kind of icky, but she really liked Tasmania, so she’s living down there, with a woman’s group, teaching them to batik cloth and things like this. Isn’t this cool? At her age? Shadow agreed it was, and helped himself to more meatballs.

Sam told them how all the aboriginal natives of Tasmania had been wiped out by the British, and about the human chain they made across the island to catch them which trapped only an old man and a sick boy. She told him how the Tasmanian tigers, the thylacines, had been killed by farmers, scared for their sheep. How the politicians in the 1930s noticed the thylacines should be protected only after the last of them was dead. She finished her 2nd glass of wine, poured her 3rd.

Sam says suddenly, her cheeks reddening, so Mike, tell them about his family. What are the Ainsels like? She was smiling, and their was mischief in this smile. Shadow says, we’re real dull, none of them ever got as far as Tasmania. So she’s at school in Madison, what’s this like?

She says, you know, she’s studying art history, women’s studies, and casting her own bronzes. Leon says, when he grows up, he’s going to do magic, poof. Will he teach him, Mike Ainsel? Shadow agrees, sure, if his mom doesn’t mind.

Mags shrugs, Sam says, after we’ve eaten, while she’s putting Leon to bed, Mags, she thinks she’s going to get Mike to take her to the Buck Stops Here for an hour or so. Mags didn’t shrug, her head moved, an eyebrow raised slightly. Sam states, she thinks he’s interesting, and we’ve lots to talk about. Mags looks at Shadow, who busied himself in dabbing an imaginary blob of red sauce from his chin with a paper napkin.

She says, in a tone of voice which did its best to imply they weren’t, and even if they were they shouldn’t be, well, they’re grown-ups. After dinner Sahow helped Sam with the washing up - he dried - and then he did a trick for Leon, counting pennies into Leon’s palm: each time Leon opened his hand and counted them there was one less coin than he’d counted in, and as for the final penny - is he squeezing it? Tightly? - when Leon opened his hand, he found it’d transformed into a dime.

Leon’s plaintive cries of, how‘d he do this? Momma, how’d he do this?, followed him out into the hall. Sam handed him his coat, she saying, come on, her cheeks flushed from the wine. Outside it was cold, Shadow stopping in his apt, tossing the Minutes of the Lakeside City Council into a plastic grocery bag and brought it along.

Hinz might be down at the Buck, and he wanted to show him the mention of his grandfather. They walked down the drive side by side, he opening the garage door, and she starting to laugh, saying, Omigod, when she saw the 4Runner, continuing, Paul Gunther’s car, he bought Paul Gunther’s car, omigod. Shadow opened the door for her, then he went around and got in asking, she knew the car? When she came up here 2 or 3 years ago to stay with Mags.

It was her who persuaded him to paint it purple. Shadow replies, oh, it’s good to have someone to blame. He drove the car out onto the street, got out and closed the garage door. Got back into the car, Sam looking at him oddly as he got in as if the confidence had started to leak out of her.

He put on his seatbelt, and she said, she’s scared, this was a stupid thing to do, wasn’t it? Getting into a car with a psycho-killer. Shadow says, he got her safe home last time. She replies, he killed 2 men, he’s wanted by the Feds, and now she finds out he’s living under an assumed name next door to her sister.

Unless Mike Ainsel is his real name? Shadow states, no, and sighs, it’s not. He hated saying it, it was if he was letting go of something important, abandoning Mike Ainsel by denying him, as if he were taking his leave of a friend. She asks, did he kill those men?

He answers, no, Sam saying, they came to her house, and said they’d been seen together, and this guy showed her photos of him. What was his name - Mr. Hat? No, Mr. Town, this was him, it was like The Fugitive, but she said she hadn’t seen him. Shadow says, thank you, Sam stating, so, tell her what’s going on, she’ll keep his secrets if he keeps hers.

Shadow says, he doesn’t know any of hers. Sam replies, well, he knew it was her idea to paint this thing purple, thus forcing Paul Gunther to become such an object of scorn and derision for several counties around, he forced to leave town entirely. We were kind of stoned, she admits. Shadow says, he doubts this bit of it’s much of a secret, everyone in Lakeside must’ve known, it’s a stoner sort of purple, and then she says, very quiet, very fast, if he’s going to kill her, please don’t hurt her.

She shouldn’t have come here with him. She’s so dumb, she’s so fucking dumb, she should’ve run away or called the cops when she first saw him, she can ID him, Jesus, she’s so dumb. Shadow sighs and says, he’s never killed anybody. Really. Now he’s going to take her to the Buck or if she gives the word, he’ll turn this car around and take her home.

He’ll buy her a drink, if she’s actually old enough to drink, and he’ll buy her a soda if she isn’t. Then, he’ll take her back to Mags, deliver her safe and sound, and hope she doesn’t go to call the cops. There was silence as they crossed the bridge. She asks, who did kill those men? Shadow replies, she wouldn’t believe him if he told her.

She sounded angry now, saying, she would. Now, he wonders if bringing the wine to the dinner had been a wise idea. Life was certainly not a Cabernet right now. Shadow responds, it’s not easy to believe.

She tells him, she can believe anything. He has no idea what she can believe. Shadow asks, really? Sam states, she can believe things which are true and things which aren’t, and she can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.

She can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed (the talking horse). Listen - she believes people are perfectible, knowledge is infinite, the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones which look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad one’s who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. She believes the future sucks and the future rocks and one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. She believes all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.

She believes all politicians are unprincipled crooks and still believes they’re better than the alternative. She believes California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while FL is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. She believes antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. She believes the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis jade is dried dragon sperm, and thousands of years ago in a former life she was a one armed Siberian shaman.

She believes mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. She believes candy really did taste better when she was a kid, it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, light is a wave and a particle, there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be 2 different kinds of dead), and there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. She believes in a personal god who cares about her and worries and oversees everything she does. She believes in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know she’s alive.

She believes in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise and sheer blink luck. She believes anyone who says sex is overrated, just hasn’t done it properly. She believes anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things, too. She believes in absolute honesty and sensible social lies.

She believes in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if one can trust the legal system implicitly, and no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. She believes life is a game, life is a cruel joke and life is what happens when one’s alive and may as well lie back and enjoy it. She stops, out of breath, Shadow almost taking his hands off the wheel to applaud. Instead he says, ok, so if he tells her what he’s learned she won’t think he’s a nut.

She replies, maybe, try her. Shadow asks, would she believe all the gods people have ever imagined are still with them today? She says, …maybe. He continues, and there are new gods out there, gods of computers and phones, and whatever, and they’ll all seem to think there isn’t room for them both in the world, and some kind of war is kind of likely.

She asks, and these gods killed those 2 men? Shadow replies, no, his wife killed those 2 men. Sam states, she thought he said his wife was dead. Shadow responds, she is.

Sam asks, she killed them before she died, then? Shadow replies, after, don’t ask. She reaches up a hand and flicked her hair from her forehead. They pulled up on Main St., outside the Buck Stops Here.

The sign over the window showed a surprised-looking stag, standing on its hind legs holding a glass of beer. Shadow got out, grabbed the bag with the book in it, and got out (repetitive there). Sam asked, why would they have a war? It seems kind of redundant, what’s there to win?

Shadow admits, he doesn’t know. Sam says, it’s easier to believe in aliens than in gods. Maybe Mr. Town and Whatever were Men in Black, only the alien kind. Shadow replies, maybe they were, at that.

They were standing on the sidewalk outside the Buck Stops Here and Sam stops. She looks up at Shadow, and her breath hung on the night air like a faint cloud. She says, just tell her he’s one of the good guys. Shadow replies, he can’t, he wishes he could, but he’s doing his best.

She looked up at him, and bit her lower lip, then nodded, saying, good enough, she won’t turn him in, he can buy her a beer. Shadow pushed the door open for her, and they were hit by a blast of heat and music, enveloped by a cloud of warmth which smelled of beer and hamburgers, they go inside. Sam waved at some friends. Shadow nodded to a handful of people whose faces - although not their names - he remembered from the day he’d spent searching for Alison McGovern, or who he’d met in Mabel’s in the morning.

Chad was standing at the bar with his arm around the shoulders of a small red-haired woman - the kissing cousin, Shadow figured. He wondered what she looked like, but she had her back to him. Chad’s hand raised in a mock salute when he saw Shadow. Shadow grinned, and waved back at him, then looking around for Hinz, but the old man didn’t seem to be there this evening.

He spied a free table at the back and started walking toward it, then somebody started to scream. It was a bad scream, a full-throated, seen-a-ghost hysterical scream, which silenced all conversation. Shadow looked around, certain somebody was being murdered, and then he realized all the faces in the bar were turning toward him. Even the black cat, who slept in the window during the day, was standing up on top of the jukebox with its tail high and its back arched and was staring at Shadow.

Time slowed, a woman’s voice shouted, parked on the verge of hysteria, get him! Oh for god’s sake, somebody stop him! Don’t let him get away! Please! It was a voice he knew.

Nobody moved, they stared at Shadow, he stared back at them. Chad steps forward, walking through the people, the small woman walked behind him warily, her eyes wide, as if she was preparing to start screaming once more. Shadow knew her, of course he knew her. Chad was still holding his beer, which he put down on a nearby table, he saying, Mike, Shadow replying, Chad.

Audrey Burton was a step behind Chad, her face white, and there were tears in her eyes. She had been screaming, and says, Shadow, bastard, murderous evil bastard. Chad asks, is she sure she knows this man, hon? He looked uncomfortable.

It was obvious he hoped whatever was happening here was all some kind of case of mistaken identity, something one day they might be able to laugh about. Audrey looks at him incredulously, and says, is he crazy? He worked for Robbie for years. His slutty wife was her best friend.

He’s wanted for murder. She had to answer questions. He’s an escaped convict. She was way over the top, her voice trembling with suppressed hysteria, sobbing out her words like a soap actress going for a daytime Emmy.

Shadow thought, unimpressed kissing cousins. Nobody in the bar says a word, Chad looks up at Shadow and sensibly says, it’s probably a mistake. He’s sure we can sort this all out. Then he says, to the bar, it’s all fine. Nothing to worry about. We can sort this out, everything’s fine.

Then to Shadow, let’s step outside, Mike. Quiet competence, Shadow was impressed, and says, sure. He felt a hand touch his hand, and he turned to see Sam staring at him. He smiled down at her reassuringly as he could.

Sam looked at Shadow, then looked around the bar at the faces staring at them. She said to Audrey, she doesn’t know who she is. But. She. Is. Such. A cunt. Then she went up on tiptoes and pulled Shadow down to her, and kissed him hard on the lips, pushing her mouth against his for what felt to Shadow like several minutes, and might’ve been as long as 5 seconds in real, clock-ticking time. It was a strange kiss, Shadow thought, as her lips pressed against his: it wasn’t intended for him.

It was for the other people in the bar, to let them know she’d picked sides. It was a flag-waving kiss. Even as she kissed him, he became certain she didn’t even like him - well not like this. Still, there was a tale he’d read once, long ago, as a small boy: the story of a traveler who’d slipped down a cliff, with man-eating tigers, above him and a lethal fall below him, who managed to stop his fall halfway down the side of the cliff, holding on for dear life.

There was a clump of strawberries beside him, and certain death above and below him. What should he do? went the question, and the reply was, eat the strawberries. The story had never made any sense to him as a boy, it did now. So he closed his eyes, threw himself into the kiss and experienced nothing but Sam’s lips and the softness of her skin against his, sweet as a wild strawberry.

Chad firmly says, c’mon, Mike, please, let’s take it outside. Sam pulled back, licked her lips and smiled, a smile which nearly reached her eyes. She says, not bad, he kisses good for a boy. Okay, go play outside.

Then she turned to Audrey and says, but she is still a cunt. Shadow tossed Sam his car keys. She caught them, one-handed. He walked through the bar, and stepped outside, followed by Chad.

A gentle snow had started to fall, the flakes spinning down into the light of the neon bar sign. Chad asks, he want to talk about this? Shadow asks, is he under arrest? Audrey followed them out onto the sidewalk.

She looked as if she were ready to start screaming again. She said, her voice trembling, he killed 2 men, Chad. The FBI came to her door. He’s a psycho, she’ll come down to the station with him, if he wants.

Shadow says, she’s caused enough trouble, ma’am, please go away. He sounded tired, even to himself. Audrey says, Chad? Did he hear this? He threatened her! Chad replies, get back inside, Audrey.

She looked as if she were about to argue, then she pressed her lips together so hard they went white, and went back into the bar. Chad asks, would he like to comment on anything she said? Shadow says, he’s never killed anyone. Chad nodded and says, he believes him, he’s sure we can deal with these allegations easily enough.

It’s probably nothing, he has to do this. He won’t give him any trouble, will he, Mike? Shadow replies, no trouble, this is all a mistake. Chad agrees, exactly, so he figures we ought to head down to his office and sort it all out there?

Shadow asks, for the 2nd time, is he under arrest? Chad says, nope, not unless he wants to be. He figures, we go down to his office together, he comes with him out of a sense of civic duty, and we do whatever we can to straighten all this out. Chad patted Shadow down, found no weapons.

They get into Chad’s car. Again Shadow sat in the book, looking out through the metal cage. He thought, SOS. Mayday. Help. He tried to push Chad with his mind, as he’d once pushed a cop in Chicago - This is his old friend Mike Ainsel. He saved his life. Doesn’t he know how silly this is? Why doesn’t he just drop the whole thing?

Chad says, he figures it was good to get him out of there. All he needed was some loudmouth deciding he was Alison McGovern’s killer and we’d’ve had a lynch mob on their hands. Shadow replies, point. Chad asks, so he’s sure there’s nothing he wants to tell him?

Shadow states, nope, nothing to say. They were silent for the rest of the drive to the Lakeside police offices. The building, Chad says, as they pulled up outside it, actually belonged to the county sheriff’s dept. The local police had a few rooms in there.

Pretty soon the county would build something modern. For now we had to make do with what we had. They walked inside, Shadow asking, should he call a lawyer? Chad replies, he isn’t accused of anything, up to him.

They pushed through some swing doors and he says, take a seat over there. Shadow took a seat on the wooden chair with cigarette burns on the side. He felt stupid and numb. There was a small poster on the notice board, beside a large NO SMOKING sign: ENDANGERED MISSING it said.

The photo was Alison McGovern’s. There was a wooden table, with old copies of Sports Illustrated and Newsweek on it, with the place on the cover where an address label had been pasted cut neatly away. The light was bad, the paint on the wall yellow, but it might once have been white. After 10 minutes Chad brought him a watery cup of vending machine hot chocolate.

He asks, what’s in the bag?, and it was only then Shadow realized he was still holding the plastic bag containing the Minutes of the Lakeside City Council. Shadow replies, old book, his grandfather’s picture’s in here. Or great-grandfather maybe. Chad responds, yeah? Shadow flipped through the book until he found the portrait of the town council, and he pointed to the man called Mulligan.

Chad chuckled and said, if this don’t beat all. Minutes passed, and hours in this room. Shadow read 2 of the Sports Illustrated and he started the Newsweek. From time to time Chad would come through, checking to see if Shadow needed to use the restroom, once to offer him a ham roll and a small packet of potato chips.

Shadow says, thanks, taking them, and asks, is he under arrest? Chad sucked the air between his teeth and says, well, we’ll know pretty soon. It doesn’t look like he came by the name Mike Ainsel legally. On the other hand, he can call himself whatever he wants in this state, if it’s not for fraudulent purposes. He just hang loose.

Shadow asks, can he make a phone call? Chad asks, is it a local call? Shadow replies, long-distance. Chad states, it’ll save money if he put it on his calling card, otherwise he’ll just be feeding 10 bucks worth of quarters in to this thing in the hall.

Shadow though, sure, and this way he’ll know the number he dialed, and he’ll probably be listening in on an extension. Shadow says, this would be great. They went into an empty office, next to Chad’s. The light was slightly better in there.

The number Shadow gave Chad to dial for him was of a funeral home in Cairo, IL. Chad dialed it, handed Shadow the receiver and says, he’ll leave him in here, and went out. The phone rang several times, then it was picked up. Ibis says, Jacquel and Ibis. How can we help them?

Shadow greets, hi, Mr. Ibis, this is Mike Ainsel. He helped out there for a few days over Xmas. A moments hesitation, then, of course. Mike. How is he? Not great Mr. Ibis.

In a patch of trouble. About to be arrested. Hoping he’d seen his uncle about, or maybe he could get a message to him. Ibis replies, he can certainly ask around. Hold on, uh, Mike. There’s someone here who wishes a word with him.

The phone was passed to somebody, and then a smoky female voice said, hi, honey. She misses him. He was certain he’d never heard this voice before, but he knew her. He was sure he knew her… The smoky voice whispered in his mind in a dream, let it go. Let it all go.

The voice on the phone asks, who’s this girl he was kissing, hon? He trying to make her jealous? Shadow says, we’re just friends, he thinks, she was trying to prove a point. How did she know she kissed him?

She answers, she has eyes wherever her folk walk, he take care now, hon… There was a moment of silence, then Ibis came back on the line and says, Mike? Shadow replies, yes. Ibis states, there’s a problem getting hold of his uncle. He seems to be kind of tied up, but he’ll try and get a message to his aunt Nancy. Best of luck.

The line went dead. Shadow sat down, expecting Chad to return. He sat in the empty office, wishing he had something to distract him. Reluctantly, he picked up the Minutes once more, opened it to somewhere in the middle of the back, and started to read.

An ordinance prohibiting expectoration on sidewalks and on the floors of public buildings, or throwing thereon tobacco in any form, was introduced and passed, 8 to 4 in Dec of 1876. Lemmi Hautala was 12 years old and had, ‘it was feared, wandered away in a fit of delirium’ on Dec the 13th, 1876. ‘A search being immediately effected, but impeded by the snows, which are blinding‘. The council had voted unanimously to send the Hautala family their condolences.

The fire at Olsen’s livery stables the following week was extinguished without any injury or loss of life, human or equine. Shadow scanned the closely printed columns. He found no further mention of Lemmi Hautala, and then, on something slightly more than a whim, he flipped the pages forward to the winter of 1877. He found what he was looking for mentioned as an aside in the January minutes: Jessie Lovat, age not given, ‘a Negro child‘, had vanished on the night of the 28th of Dec.

It was believed she might’ve been ‘abducted by traveling so-called pedlars, who were run out of town the previous week, having been discovered to be engaged in certain larcenous acts. They were said to be making for St. Paul‘. Telegrams had been sent to St. Paul, but no results were reported. Condolences weren’t sent to the Lovat family. Shadow was scanning the minutes of winter 1878 when Chad knocked and entered, looking shamefaced, like a child bringing home a bad report card.

He says, Mr. Ainsel, Mike. He’s truly sorry about this. He appreciates how easy he’s been about all this. Personally, he likes him, but this don’t change anything, you know?

Shadow said he knew. Chad states, he got no choice in the matter, but to place him under arrest for violating his parole. Then Police Chief Chad Mulligan read Shadow his rights. He filled out some paperwork.

He took Shadow’s prints. He walked him down the hall to the county jail, on the other side of the building. There was a long counter and several doorways on one side of the room, 2 holding cells and a doorway on the other. One of the cells was occupied - a man slept on a cement bed under a thin blanket.

The other was empty. There was a sleepy-looking woman in a brown uniform behind the counter, watching Jay Leno on a small white portable TV. She took the papers from Chad, and signed for Shadow. Chad hung around, filled in more papers.

The woman came around the counter, patted Shadow down, took all his possessions - wallet, coins, front door key, book, watch - and put them on the counter then gave him a plastic bag with orange clothes in it and told him to go into the open cell and change into them. He could keep his own underwear and socks. He went in and changed into the orange clothes and the shower footwear. It stank evilly in there.

The orange top he pulled over his head had LUMBER CITY JAIL written on the back, in large black letters. The metal toilet in the cell had backed up, and was filled to the brim with a brown stew of liquid feces and sour, beerish urine. Shadow came back out, gave the woman his clothes, which she put into the plastic bag with the rest of his possessions. She had him sign for them.

Shadow signed for them as Mike Ainsel, although he found he was already thinking of Mike Ainsel as someone he’d liked well enough in the past but would no longer be seeing in the future. He’d thumbed through the wallet before he handed it over, and says to the woman, she take care of this, his whole life is in here. The woman took the wallet from him, and assured him it’d be safe with them. She asked Chad if this wasn’t true, and Chad, looking up from the last of his paperwork, said Liz was telling the truth, we’d never lost a prisoner’s possessions yet.

Shadow had slipped the 400-dollar bills which he’d palmed from the wallet into his socks, when he’d changed, along with the silver Liberty dollar he’d palmed as he’d emptied his pockets. Shadow asks when he came out, say, would it be ok if he finished reading the book? Chad says, sorry, Mike. Rules are rules.

Liz put Shadow’s possessions in a bag in the back room. Chad said he’d leave Shadow in Officer Bute’s capable hands. Liz looked tired and unimpressed, Chad left, the phone rang, and Liz - Officer Bute - answered it, saying, ok, ok, no problem. Okay.

She put down the phone and made a face, Shadow asks, problem? She replies, yes, not really. Kinda, they’re sending someone up from Milwaukee to collect him. Ok, does he have any history of medical problems, diabetes, anything like this?

Shadow says, no, nothing like this. Why is this a problem? She replies, because she’s got to keep him in here with her for 3 hours, and the cell over there - she pointed to the cell by the door, with the sleeping man in it - this is occupied. He’s on suicide watch.

She shouldn’t put him in with him, but it’s not worth the trouble to sign him in to the county and then sign him out again. She shook her head, and he doesn’t want to go in there - she pointing to the empty cell in which he’d changed his clothes - because the can is shot. It stinks in there, doesn’t it? Shadow replies, yes. It was gross.

She states, it’s common humanity, this is what it is. The sooner we get into the new facilities, it can’t be too soon for her. One of the women we had in yesterday must’ve flushed a tampon away. She tell’em not to.

We got bins for this, they clog the pipes. Every damn tampon down this john costs the county a hundred bucks in plumber’s fees. So, she can keep him out here, if she cuffs him. Or he can go in the cell, his call.

She looked at him, he replying, he’s not crazy about them, but he’ll take the cuffs. She took a pair from her utility belt, then patted the semi-automatic in its holster, as if to remind him it was there and says, hands behind his back. The cuffs were a tight fit: he had big wrists. Then she put hobbles on his ankles, and sat him down on a bench on the far side of the counter, against the wall.

She said, now he don’t bother her, and she won’t bother him. She tilted the TV so he could see it. He said, thanks. She says, when we get their new offices, there won’t be none of this nonsense.

The Tonight Show finished, Jay and his guests grinned the world goodnight. An episode of Cheers started, Shadow having never really watched Cheers. He’d only ever seen one episode of it - the one where Coach’s daughter comes to the bar - although he’d seen this several times. Shadow had noticed one only ever catches one episode of shows one doesn’t watch, over and over, years apart; he thought it must be some kind of cosmic law.

Officer Liz Bute sat back in her chair. She wasn’t obviously dozing, but she was by no means awake, so she didn’t notice when the gang at Cheers stopped talking and getting off one-lines and just started staring out of the screen at Shadow. Diane, the blonde barmaid who fancied herself an intellectual, was the first to talk. She says, Shadow, we were so worried about him.

He’d fallen off the world. It’s so good to see him again - albeit in bondage and orange couture. Bar-bore Cliff pontificated, what he figures, is, the thing to do, is to escape in hunting season, when everybody’s wearing orange anyway. Shadow said nothing. Diane says, ah, cat got his tongue, she sees, well, he’s led them a merry chase!

Shadow looked away, Officer Liz had started, gently, to snore. Carla, the little waitress snapped, hey, jerk-wad! We interrupt this broadcast to show him something which’s going to make him piss in his friggin’ pants, he ready? The screen flickered and went black, the words ‘LIVE FEED‘ pulsated in white at the bottom left of the screen.

A subdued female voice said, in voice-over, it’s certainly not too late to change to the winning side, but you know, he also has the freedom to stay just where he is. Which is what it means to be an American. This is the miracle of America. Freedom to believe means the freedom to believe the wrong thing, after all.

Just as freedom of speech gives him the right to stay silent. The picture now showed a street scene. The camera lurched forward, in the manner of hand-held video cameras in real-life documentaries. A man with thinning hair, a tan, and a faintly hangdog expression filled the frame.

He was standing by a wall sipping a cup of coffee from a plastic cup. He looked into the camera and said, terrorism is too easy a word to bandy about. It means the real terrorists hid behind weasel-words, like freedom fighter, when we’re murdering scum, pure and simple. It doesn’t make our job any easier, but at least we know we’re making a difference.

We’re risking their lives to make a difference. Shadow recognized the voice. He’d been inside the man’s head once. Mr. Town sounded different from inside - his voice was deeper, more resonant - but there was no mistaking it.

The cameras pulled back to show Mr. Town was standing outside a brick building on an American street. Above the door was a set-square and compass framing the letter G. Somebody off-screen says, in position. The female voice-over voice says, let’s see if the cameras inside the hall are working.

It was the kind of reassuring voice they use on commercials to try and sell things only people as smart as them are going to take this opportunity to buy. The words LIVE FEED continued to blink at the bottom left of the screen. Now the pic showed the interior of a small hall: the room was under lit. Two men sat at a table at the far end of the room.

One of them had his back to the camera. The camera zoomed into them awkwardly, in a series of jagged movements. For a moment they were out of focus, and then they became sharp once more. The man facing the camera got up and started to pace, like a bear on a chain.

It was Wed, he looked as if, on some level, he was enjoying this. As they came into focus the sound came on with a pop. The man with his back to the screen was saying, - we’re offering is the chance to end this, here and now, with no more bloodshed, no more aggression, no more pain, no more loss of life. Isn’t this worth giving up a little?

Wed stopped pacing and turned, his nostrils flared, and he growled, first, he has to understand he’s asking him to speak for all of them, for each and every individual in his position across this country. Which is manifestly nonsensical. They’ll do what they will do, and he has no say in it. Secondly, what on earth makes him think he believes his people are going to keep their word?

The man with his back to the camera moved his head, and says, he does himself an injustice, obviously his people have no leaders, but he’s the one they listen to. They pay attention to him Mr Cargo, and as for keeping his word, well, these preliminary talks are being filmed and broadcast live, and he gestured back toward the camera, and continues, some of his people are watching as we speak. Others will see videotapes. Others will be told by those they trust.

The camera doesn’t lie. Wed states, everybody lies. Shadow recognized the voice of the man with his back to the camera. It was Mr. World, the one who had spoken to Town on the cell while Shadow was in Town’s head.

Mr. World says, he doesn’t believe we’ll keep our word? Wed replies, he thinks his promises were made to be broken and his oaths to be foresworn, but he’ll keep his word. Mr. World states, safe conduct is safe conduct and a flag truce is what we agreed. He should tell him, by the way, his young protege is once more in their custody.

Wed snorted, saying, no, he’s not. World replies, we were discussing the ways to deal with the coming paradigm shift. We don’t have to be enemies, do we? Wed still seemed shaken, saying, he’ll do whatever’s in his power…

Shadow noticed something strange about the image of Wed on the TV screen. A red glint burned on his left eye, the glass one. The eye burned with a scarlet light. The glint left a phosphor-dot after-image as he moved.

Wed seemed unaware of it. Wed says marshaling his thoughts, it’s a big country. He moved his head and the scarlet glitter-blur slipped to his cheek, a red laser-pointer dot. Then it edged up to his glassy eye once more, and says, there room for - There was a bang, muted by the TV speaker, and the side of Wed’s head exploded.

His body tumbled backward. Mr. World stood up, his back still to the camera, and walked out of shot. The announcer’s voice, reassuringly says, let’s see this again, in slow motion this time. The words LIVE FEED became REPLAY.

Slowly now the red laser pointer traced its bead onto Wed’s glass eye, and once again the side of his face dissolved into a cloud of blood, freeze frame. The announcer, a news reporter pronouncing the final tag line says, yes, it’s still God’s Own Country. The only question is, which gods? Another voice - Shadow thought it was Mr. World’s, it had this same half-familiar quality - said, we now return them to their regularly scheduled programming.

On Cheers Coach assured his daughter she was truly beautiful, just like her mother. The phone rang, and Officer Liz sat up with a start, she picked up and said, ok. Ok. Yes. Ok, she’ll be over there, put the phone down and got up from behind the counter.

She said to Shadow, sorry, she’s going to have to put him in the cell. Don’t use the can. If he needs to go, press the buzzer by the door, and she’ll come down as soon as she can and escort him to the restrooms out back. The Lafayette Sheriff’s department should be here to collect him soon.

She removed the cuffs and the hobble, locked him into the holding cell. The smell was worse, now the door was closed. Shadow sat down on the concrete bed, slipped the Liberty dollar from his sock and started moving it from finger to palm, from position to position, from hand to hand, his only aim to keep the coin from being seen by anyone who might look in. He was passing the time, he was numb.

He missed Wed, then, sudden and deep. He missed the man’s confidence, his attitude, conviction. He opened his hand, looked down at Lady Liberty, a silver profile. He closed his fingers over the coin, held it tightly.

He wondered if he’d get to be one of those guys who got life for something they didn’t do. If he even made it this far. From what he’d seen of Mr. World and Town, they’d have little trouble pulling him out of the system. Perhaps he’d suffer an unfortunate accident on the way to the next holding facility.

He could be shot while making a break for it. It didn’t seem at all unlikely. There was a stir of activity in the room on the other side of the glass. Officer Liz came back in, she pressed a button, a door Shadow couldn’t see opened, and a black deputy in a brown sheriff’s uniform entered and walked briskly over to the desk.

Shadow slipped the dollar coin back into his sock, pushing it down toward his ankle. The new deputy handed over some papers, Liz scanned them and signed. Chad came in, said a few words to the new man, then he unlocked the cell door and walked inside, saying, it stinks in here. Shadow replies, tell him about it.

Chad states, ok. Folk are here to pick him up. Seems he’s a matter of national security. He know this? Shadow replies, it’ll make a great front-page story for the Lakeside News. Chad looked at him without expression, and says, a drifter got picked up for parole violations? Not much of a story.

Shadow asks, so this is the way it is? Chad says, this is what they tell him. Shadow put his hands in front of him this time, and Chad cuffed him. Chad locked on the ankle hobbles, and a rod from the cuffs to the hobbles.

Shadow thought, they’ll take him outside. Maybe he can make a break for it, some kind of break for it, in hobbles and cuffs and lightweight orange clothes, out into the snow, and even as he thought it he knew how stupid and hopeless it was. Chad walked him out into the office. Liz had turned the TV off now.

The black deputy looked him over and says to Chad, he’s a big guy. Liz passed the new deputy the paper bag with Shadow’s possessions in it, and he signed for it. Chad looked at Shadow, then at the deputy. He said to the deputy, quietly, but loudly enough for Shadow to hear, look, he just wants to say, he’s not comfortable with the way this is happening.

The deputy nodded, his voice was deep, and cultured: the voice of a man who could as easily organize a press briefing as a massacre, and says, he’ll have to take it up with the appropriate authorities, sir. Their job is simply to bring him in. Chad made a sour face, turned to Shadow and says, okay, through this door and into the sally port. Shadow asks, what?

Chad replies, out there. Where the car is. Liz unlocked the doors and says to the deputy, he make sure the orange uniform comes right back here. The last felon we sent down to Lafayette, we never saw the uniform again.

They cost the county money. They walked Shadow out to the sally port, where a car was waiting. It wasn’t a sheriff’s-department car. It was a black town car, another deputy, a grizzled white guy with a mustache, stood by the car, smoking a cigarette.

He crushed it out underfoot as they came close, and opened the back door for Shadow. Shadow sat down awkwardly, his movements hampered by the cuffs and the hobble. There was no grille between the back and the front of the car. The 2 deputies climbed into the front of the car.

The black deputy started the motor. They waited for the sally port door to open. Come on, come on, said the black deputy, his fingers drumming against the steering wheel. Chad tapped on the side window.

The white deputy glanced at the driver, then he lowered the window, Chad says, this is wrong, he just wanted to say this. The driver replies, his comments have been noted, and will be conveyed to the appropriate authorities. The doors to the outside world opened. The snow was still falling, dizzying into the car’s headlights.

The driver put his foot on the gas, and they were heading back down the street and onto Main St. The driver asks, he hear about Wed? His voice sounded different, now, older, and familiar, and continuing says, he’s dead. Shadow replies, yeah, you know, he saw it on TV.

The white officer says, those fuckers. It was the first thing he’d said, and his voice was rough and accented and, like the driver’s, it was a voice Shadow knew, continuing, he’ll tell him, they’re fuckers, those fuckers. Shadow states, thanks for coming to get him. The driver replies, don’t mention it.

In the light of an oncoming car his face already looked older. He looked smaller, too. The last time Shadow’d seen him he’d been wearing lemon-yellow gloves, and a check jacket, he saying, we were in Milwaukee. Still had to drive like demons when Ibis called.

The white deputy gloomily says, fumbling in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes, he think we let them lock him up and send him to the chair, when he’s still waiting to break his head with his hammer? His accent was east European. Mr. Nancy says, the real shit will hit the fan in an hour or less, looking more like himself with each moment, continuing, when they really turn up to collect him. We’ll pull over before we get to Hwy 53 and get him out of those shackles and back into his own clothes.

Czerno held up a handcuff key and smiled. Shadow states, he likes the mustache, suits him. Czerno stroked it with a yellowed finger and says, thank you. Shadow asks, Wed, is he really dead? This isn’t some kind of trick is it?

He realized he’d been holding onto some kind of hope, foolish though it was, but the expression on Nancy’s face told him all he needed to know, and the hope was gone.

Coming to America 14,000 B.C.

Cold it was, and dark, when the vision came to her, for in the far north daylight was a gray dim time in the middle of the day which came, and went, and came again: an interlude between darknesses. They weren’t a large tribe as those things were counted then: nomads of the Northern Plains. They had a god, who was the skull of a mammoth, and the hide of a mammoth fashioned into a rough cloak (similar to the rats in Neverwhere). Nunyunnini they called him.

When they weren’t traveling, he rested on a wooden frame, at man height. She was the holy woman of the tribe, the keeper of its secrets, and her name was Atsula, the fox. Atsula walked before the 2 tribesmen who carried their god on long poles, draped with bearskins, which it shouldn’t be seen by profane eyes, nor at time’s when it wasn’t holy. They roamed the tundra, with their tents.

The finest of the tents was made of caribou-hide, and it was the holy tent, and there were 4 of them inside it: Atsula, the priestess, Gugwei, the tribal elder, Yanu, the war leader, and Kalanu, the scout. She called them there, the day after she had her vision. Atsula scraped some lichen into the fire, then she threw in dried leaves with her withered left hand: they smoked, with an eye-stinging gray smoke, and gave off an odor which, was sharp and strange. Then she took a wooden cup from the wooden platform, and she passed it to Gugwei.

The cup was half-filled with a dark yellow liquid. Atsula had found the pungh mushrooms - each with 7 spots, only a true holy woman could find a 7-spotted mushroom- and had picked them at the dark of the moon, and dried them on a string of deer cartilage. Yesterday, before she slept, she had eaten the 3 dried mushroom caps. Her dreams had been confused and fearful things, of bright lights moving fast of rock mountains filled with lights spearing upward like icicles.

She squatted over the wooden cup and filled it with her urine. Then she placed the cup outside the tent, in the snow, and returned to sleep. When she woke, she picked the lumps of ice out from the wooden cup, as her mothered taught her, leaving a darker, more concentrated liquid behind. It was this liquid she passed around the skin tent, first to Gugwei, then to Yanu and to Kalanu.

Each of them took a large gulp of the liquid, then Atsula took the final draught. She swallowed it, and poured what was left on the ground in front of their god, libation to Nunyunnini. They sat in the smoky tent, waiting for their god to speak. Outside, in the darkness, the wind wailed and breathed.

Kalanu, the scout, was a woman who dressed and walked as a man: She’d even taken Dalani, a 14 year old maiden, to be her wife. Kalanu blinked her eyes tightly, then she got up and walked over to the mammoth-skull. She pulled the mammoth-hide cloak over herself, and stood so her head was inside the mammoth-skull. Nunyunnini says, there’s evil in the land. Evil, such if they stay here, in the land of their mother’s and their mother’s mothers, they shall all perish.

The 3 listeners grunted, Gugwei whose face was as wrinkled as the gray skin of a thorn tree asks, is it the slaves? Or the great wolves? Nunyunnini, old stone-hide says, it’s not the slavers, it’s not the great wolves. Gugwei asks, is it a famine? Is a famine coming?

Nunyunnini was silent, Kalanu came out of the skull and waited with the rest of them. Gugwei put on the mammoth-hide cloak, and put his head inside the skull. Nunyunnini, through Gugwei’s mouth says, it’s not a famine as they know it, although a famine will follow. Yanu asks, then what is it? He’s not afraid. He will stand against it. We have spears, and we have throwing rocks. Let a hundred mighty warriors come against them, still we shall prevail.

We shall lead them into the marshes and split their skulls with their rocks. Nunyunnini in Gugwei’s old voice says, it’s not a man thing. It will come from the skies, and none of their spears or rocks will protect them. Atsula asked, how can we protect ourselves? She’s seen flames in the skies. She’s heard a noise louder than 10 thunderbolts. She’s seen forests flattened and rivers boil.

Nunyunnini says, ai…, but he said no more. Gugwei came out of the skull, bending stiffly, for he was an old man, and his knuckles were swollen and knotted. There was silence, Atsula threw more leaves on the fire, and the smoke made their eyes tear. Then Yanu strode to the mammoth-head, put the cloak about his broad shoulders, put his head inside the skull.

His voice boomed, Nunyunnini said, they must journey. They must travel to sun-ward. Where the sun rises, there they’ll find a new land, where they’ll be safe. It’ll be a long journey: the moon will swell and empty, die and live, twice, there will be slavers and beasts, but he shall guide them and keep them safe, if they travel toward the sunrise.

Atsula spat on the mud of the floor, and said, no, she could feel the god staring at her, continuing, no, he is a bad god to tell us this. We will die. We’ll all die, and then who’ll be left to carry him from high place to high place, to raise his tent, to oil his great tusks with fat? The god said nothing, Atsula and Yanu exchanged places.

Atsula’s face stared out through the yellowed mammoth-bone. Nunyunnini in Atsula’s voice says, Atsula has no faith, Atsula will die before the rest of them enter the new land, but the rest of them shall live. Trust him: there’s a land to the east which is manless. This land shall be their land and the land of their children and their children’s children, for 7 generations, and 7 sevens, but for Atsula’s faithlessness, they’d have kept it forever.

In the morning, pack their tents and their possessions, and walk toward the sunrise, and Gugwei, Yanu, and Kalanu bowed their heads and exclaimed at the power and wisdom of Nunyunnini. The moon swelled and waned and swelled and waned once more. The people of the tribe walked east, toward the sunrise, struggling through the icy winds, which numbed their exposed skin. Nunyunnini had promised them truly: they lost no one from the tribe on the journey, save for a woman in childbirth, and women in childbirth belong to the moon, not to Nunyunnini.

They crossed the land-bridge, Kalanu had left them at first light to scout the way. Now the sky was dark, and Kalanu hadn’t returned, but the night sky was alive with lights, knotting and flickering and winding, flux and pulse, white and green and violet and red. Atsula and her people had seen the northern lights before, but they were still frightened by them, and this was a display like they’d never seen before. Kalanu returned to them, as the lights in the sky formed and flowed.

She said to Atsula, sometimes she feels she could simply spread her arms and fall into the sky. Atsula, the priestess says, this is because she’s a scout, when she dies, she shall fall into the sky and become a star, to guide them as she guides them in life. Kalanu her raven-back hair worn long as a man would wear it, says, there are cliffs of ice to the east, high cliffs, they can climb them, but it’ll take many days.

Atsula says, she shall lead them safely. She shall die at the foot of the cliff and this shall be the sacrifice which takes them into the new lands. To the west of them, back in the lands from which they’d come, where the sun had set hours before, there was a flash of sickly yellow light, brighter than lightning, brighter than daylight: a burst of pure brilliance which forced the folk on the land bridge to cover their eyes and spit and exclaim, children started to wail. Gugwei, the old says, this is the doom Nunyunnini warned them of, surely he’s a wise god and a mighty one.

Kalanu said, he’s the best of all gods in their new land we shall raise him up on high, and we shall polish his tusks and skull with fish oil and animal fat, and we shall tell our children, and our children’s children, and our 7th children’s children, Nunyunnini is the mightiest of all gods, and shall never be forgotten. Atsula, slowly, as if she were comprehending a great secret says, gods are great, but the heart is greater. For it’s from our hearts they come, and to our hearts they shall return…, and there’s no telling how long she might’ve continued in this blasphemy, had it not been interrupted in a manner which brooked no argument. The roar which erupted from the west was so loud ears bled.

They could hear nothing for sometime, temporarily blinded and deafened but alive, knowing they were luckier than the tribes to the west of them. Atsula said, it’s good, but she couldn’t hear the words inside her head. Asula died at the foot of the cliffs when the spring sun was at its zenith. She didn’t live to see the New World, and the tribe walked into those lands with no holy woman.

They scaled the cliffs, and they went south and west, until they found a valley with fresh water, and rivers which teemed with silver fish, and deer which had never seen man before, and were so tame it was necessary to spit and to apologize to their spirits before killing them. Dalani gave birth to 3 boys, and some said Kalanu had performed the final magic and could do the man-thing with her bride: while others said old Gugwei wasn’t too old to keep a young bride company when her husband was away: and certainly once Gugwei died, Dalani had no more children, and the ice times came and went, and the people spread out across the land, and formed new tribes and chose new totems for themselves: ravens and foxes and ground sloths, and great cats and buffalo. Each a taboo beast which marked a tribe’s identity, each beast a god. The mammoths of the new lands were bigger, and slower, and more foolish than the mammoths of the Siberian plains, and the pungh mushrooms, with their 7 spots, weren’t to be found in the new lands, and Nunyunnini didn’t speak to the tribe any longer, and in the days of the grandchildren of Dalani and Kalanu’s grandchildren, a band of warriors, members of a big and prosperous tribe, returning from a slaving expedition in the north to their home in the south, found the valley of the First People: they killed most of the men, and they took the women and many of the children captive.

One of the children, hoping for clemency, took them to a cave in the hills, in which they found a mammoth-skull, the tattered remnants of a mammoth-skin cloak, a wooden cup, and the preserved head of Atsula the oracle. While some of the warriors of the new tribe were for taking the sacred objects away with them, stealing the gods of the First People and owning their power, others counseled against it, saying they’d bring nothing but ill luck, and the malice of their own god (for these were the people of a raven tribe, and ravens are jealous gods). So they threw the object’s down the side of the hill, into a deep ravine, and took the survivors of the First People with them on their long journey south, and the raven tribes and fox tribes, grew more powerful in the land, and soon Nunyunnini was entirely forgot.

They changed cars at 5 in the morning, in Minneapolis, in the airport’s long-term parking lot. They drove to the top floor, where the parking building was open to the sky. Shadow took the orange uniform, handcuffs and leg hobbles, put them in the brown paper bag which had briefly held his possessions, folded the whole thing up and dropped it into a parking lot garbage can. They’d been waiting for 10 minutes when a barrel-chested young man came out of an airport door and walked over to them.

He was eating a packet of Burger King french fries. Shadow recognized him immediately: he’d sat in the back of the car when they’d left the House on the Rock. It made him look older. The man wiped the grease from his hands onto his sweater, extended one huge hand to Shadow.

He said, he heard of the all-father’s death. They’ll pay, and they’ll pay dearly. Shadow asks, Wed was his father? The man states, he was the all-father. His deep voice caught in his throat, he continuing, he tell them, tell them all, when they’re needed his people will be there.

Czerno picked at a flake of tobacco between his teeth and spat it out onto the frozen slush, and says, and how many of them is this? 10? 20? The barrel-chested man’s beard bristled and says, and aren’t ten of us worth a hundred of them? Who would stand against even one of his folk, in a battle? But there are more of them than this, at the edges of the cities. There are a few in the mountains. Some in the Catskills, a few living in the carny towns in FL.

They keep their axes sharp. They’ll come if he calls them. Mr. Nancy says, he do this, Elvis. Shadow thought he said Elvis, anyway, but he couldn’t be sure. Nancy had exchanged the deputy’s uniform for a thick brown cardigan, corduroy trousers and brown loafers and continues, he call them. It’s what the old bastard would’ve wanted.

The man who might’ve been named Elvis said, they betrayed him. They killed him. He laughed at Wed, but he was wrong. None of them are safe any longer, but he can rely on them.

He gently patted Shadow on the back and almost sent him sprawling. It was like being gently patted on the back by a wrecking ball. Czerno had been looking around the parking lot, now he said, he’ll pardon him asking, but their new vehicle is which? The barrel-chested man pointed and said there she is Czerno snorted, this?

It was a 1970 VS bus. There was a rainbow decal in the rear window. Elvis says, it’s a fine vehicle, and it’s the last thing they’ll be expecting them to be driving. The last thing they’ll be looking for.

Czerno walked around the vehicle. Then he started to cough, a lung rumbling, old-man, five-in-the-morning, smoker’s cough. He hawked, and spat, and put his hand to his chest, massaging away the pain, and says, yes. The last car they will suspect.

So what happens when the police pull them over, looking for the hippies, and the dope? Eh? We’re not here to ride the magic bus. We’re to blend in. The bearded man unlocked the door to the bus and says, so they take a look at them, they see they’re not hippies, they wave them goodbye.

It’s the perfect disguise, and it’s all he could find at no notice. Czerno seemed to be ready to argue it further, but Mr. Nancy intervened smoothly, saying, Elvis, he came through for them. We’re very grateful. Now, this car needs to get back to Chicago.

The bearded man says, we’ll leave it in Bloomington, the wolves will take care of it. Don’t give it another thought. He turned back to Shadow and says, again, he has his sympathy and he shares his pain, good luck, and if the vigil falls to him, his admiration, and his sympathy. He squeezed Shadow’s hand in sympathy and in friendship with his own catcher’s-mitt fist, it hurt, he saying, he tell his corpse when he sees it, tell him Alviss son of Vindalf will keep the faith.

The VS bus smelled of patchouli, of old incense and rolling tobacco. There was a faded pink carpet glued to the floor and to the walls. Shadow asks, as he drove them down the ramp, grinding the gears, who was this? Just like he said, Alvis son of Vindalf, he’s the king of the dwarfs.

The biggest, mightiest, greatest of all the dwarf folk. Shadow points out, but he’s not a dwarf, he’s what, 5’8? 5’9? Czerno from behind him says, which makes him a giant among dwarfs, tallest dwarf in America. Shadow asks, what was this about the vigil?

The 2 old men said nothing. Shadow glanced to his right. Mr Nancy was staring out the window. Someone answers, well? He was talking about a vigil. He heard him.

Czerno spoke up from the backseat, he will not have to do it. Shadow asks, do what? The answer, the vigil. He talks too much. All the dwarfs talk and talk and talk. And sing. All the time, sing, sing, sing. Is nothing to think of. Better he put it out of his mind.

They drove south, keeping off the freeways (Mr Nancy said, we must assume they’re in enemy hands. Or they’re perhaps enemy hands in their own right). Driving south was like driving forward in time. The snow erased, slowly, and were completely gone by the following morning when the bus reached KY. Winter was already over in KY, and spring was on its way.

Shadow started to wonder if there were some kind of equation to explain it - perhaps every 50 miles he drove south he was driving a day into the future. He’d have mentioned his idea to his passengers, but Mr Nancy was asleep in the passenger seat in the front, while Czerno snored unceasingly in the back. Time seemed a flexible construct at this moment, an illusion he was imagining as he drove. He found himself becoming painfully aware of bird and animals: he saw the crows on the side of the road, or in the bus’s path, picking at roadkill; flights of birds wheeled across the skies in patterns which almost made sense; cats stared at them from front lawns and fence-posts.

Czerno snorted and woke, sitting up slowly, and says, he dreamed a strange dream, he dreamed he is truly Bielebog. Forever the world imagines there are 2 of us, the light god and the dark, but now were both old, he finds it was it was only him all the time, giving them gifts, taking his gifts away. He broke the filter from a Lucky Strike, put it between his lips and lit it with his lighter. Shadow wound down his window.

Shadow asks, isn’t he worried about lung cancer? Czerno replies, he is cancer, he doesn’t frighten himself. He chuckled, and then the chuckle became a wheeze and the wheeze turned into a cough. Nancy spoke, folk like them don’t get cancer.

We don’t get arteriosclerosis or Parkinson’s disease or syphilis. We’re kind of hard to kill. Shadow states, they killed Wed. He pulled over for gas, and then parked next door at a restaurant, for an early breakfast.

As they entered, the payphone in the entrance started to jangle. They walked past it without answering it, and it stopped ringing. They gave their orders to an elderly woman with a worried smile, who had been sitting reading a paperback copy of What My Heart Meant by Jenny Kerton. The phone started to ring once more.

The woman sighed, then walked back and over to the phone, picked it up, said, yes. Then she looked back at the room, said, yep. Looks like they are. They just hold the line now, and walked over to Mr. Nancy.

She says, it’s for him. Mr Nancy replies, ok, now ma’am she make sure those fried are real crisp now. Think burnt. He walked to the payphone. He says, this is he. And what makes them think he’s dumb enough to trust them? He can find it. He knew where it was. Yes. We want it. They know we want it, and he knows they want to get rid of it. So don’t give him any shit.

He put down the phone, came back to the table. Shadow asks, who was it? Nancy replies, didn’t say. Shadow asks, what did they want?

Nancy states, they were offerin’ them a truce, while they hand over the body. Czerno says, they lie. They want to lure them in and then they’ll kill us. What they did to Wed. Is what he always used to do, he added, with gloomy pride, continuing, promised them anything, but do what he will.

Nancy says, it’s on neutral territory, truly neutral. Czerno chuckled. It sounded like a metal ball rattling in a dry skull and says, he used to say this also. Come to a neutral place, he would say, and then in the night we’d rise up and kill them all. Those were good days.

Mr. Nancy shrugged. He crunched down on his dark brown french fries, grinned his approval. He says, mm-mm. These are fine fries. Shadow says, we can’t trust those people.

Mr Nancy responds, listen, he’s older than him and he’s smarter than him and he’s better lookin’ than him, thumping the bottom of the ketchup bottle, blobbing ketchup over his burnt fries and continues, he can get more pussy in an afternoon than he’ll get in a year. He can dance like an angel, fight like a cornered bear, plan better than a fox, sing like a nightingale… Shadow asks, and his point here is…? Nancy’s brown eyes gazed into Shadow’s and says, and they need to get rid of the body as much as we need to take it.

Czerno says, there is no such neutral place. Mr Nancy replies, there’s one, it’s the center. Czerno shook his head abruptly, and says, no. They wouldn’t meet them there. They can do nothing to them, there. It’s a bad place for all of them. Nancy replies, this is just why they’ve proposed to make the handover at the center.

Czerno seemed to think about this for awhile, and then he says, perhaps. Shadow says, when we get back on the road, he can drive, he needs to sleep. Determining the exact center of anything can be problematic at best. With living things - people, for example, or continents - the problem becomes one of intangibles: What is the center of a man? What is the center of a dream? And in the case of the continental United States, should one count Alaska when one attempts to find the center? Or HI?

As the 20th century began, they made a huge model of the USA, the lower 48 states, out of cardboard, and to find the center they balanced it on a pin, until they found the single place it balanced. Near as anyone could figure it out, the exact center of the continental U.S. was several miles from Lebanon, in Smith County, KS, on Johnny Grib’s hog farm. By the 1930s, the people of Lebanon were all ready to put a monument up in the middle of the hog farm, but Johnny Grib said he didn’t want millions of tourists coming in and tramping all over and upsetting the hogs, and the locals figured he had a point, so they put the monument to the geographical center of the U.S. 2 miles north of the town. They built a park, and a stone monument to put in the park, and put a brass plaque to go on the monument to tell them they were indeed looking at the exact geographic center of the U.S.

They blacktopped the road from the town to the little park, and certain of the influx of tourists just waiting to come to Lebanon, they even built a motel by the monument. They brought in a little mobile chapel as well, and took off the wheels. Then they waited for the tourists and the holiday makers to come: all the people who wanted to tell the world they’d been at the center of America, and marveled, and prayed. The tourists didn’t come.

Nobody came. It’s a sad little park, now with a mobile chapel in it a little bigger than an ice-fishing hut which wouldn’t fit a small funeral party, and a motel whose windows look like dead eyes. Mr Nancy includes, which is why, as they drove into Humansville, MI (pop. 1,084), continuing the exact center of America is a tiny rundown park, an empty church, a pile of stones, and a derelict motel. Czerno says, hog farm, he just said the real center of America was a hog farm.

Mr Nancy says, this isn’t about what is, it’s about what people think is. It’s all imaginary anyway. This is why it’s important. People only fight over imaginary things.

Shadow asks, his kind of people? or their kind of people? Nancy said nothing. Czerno made a noise which might’ve been a chuckle, might’ve been a snort. Shadow tried to get comfortable in the back of the bus. He’s slept a little, but only a little.

He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Worse than the feeling he had in prison, worse than the feeling he had back when Laura had come to him and told him about the robbery. This was bad. The back of his neck prickled, he fell sick and, several times, in waves, he felt scared.

Mr. Nancy pulled over in Humansville, parked outside a supermarket. Nancy went inside, and Shadow followed him in. Czerno waited in the parking lot, stretching his legs, smoking his cigarette. There was a young fair-haired man, little more than a boy, restocking the breakfast cereal shelves.

Mr. Nancy greets, hey, the young man replies, hey. It’s true, isn’t it? They killed him? Mr Nancy states, yes, they killed him. The young man banged several boxes of Cap’n Crunch down on the shelf, and says, they think they can crush us like cockroaches. He had an eruption of acne across one cheek and over his forehead.

He had a silver bracelet high on one forearm, and says, we don’t crush this easy, do we? Mr. Nancy replies, no, we don’t. The young man, his pale blue eyes blazing, says, he’ll be there, sir. Mr. Nancy replies, he knows he will, Gwydion.

Mr. Nancy bought several large bottles of RC Cola, and 6-pack of toilet paper, a pack of evil-looking black cigarillos, a bunch of bananas and a pack of Doublemint chewing gum, and says, he’s a good boy. Came over in the 7th century. Welsh. The bus meandered first to the west and then to the north. Spring faded back into the dead end of winter.

KS was the cheerless gray of lonesome clouds, empty windows and lost loves. Shadow had become adept at hunting for radio stations, negotiation between Nancy, who liked talk radio and dance music, and Czerno, who favored classical music, the gloomier the better, leavened with the more extreme evangelical religious stations. For himself, Shadow liked oldies stations. Toward the end of the afternoon they stopped, at Czerno’s request, on the outskirts of Cherryvale, KS (pop. 2,464).

Czerno led them to a meadow outside the town. There were still traces of snow in the Shadows of the trees, and the grass was the color of dirt. Czerno says, wait here. He walked, alone, to the center of the meadow. He stood there, in the winds of the end of Feb for some time.

At first he hung his head, then he started gesticulating. Shadow says, he looks like he’s talking to someone. Mr. Nancy replies, ghosts, they worshiped him here over a hundred years ago. They made blood-sacrifice to him, libations spilled with the hammer.

After a time, the townsfolk figured out why so many of the strangers who passed through the town didn’t ever come back. This was where they hid some of the bodies. Czerno came back from the middle of the field. His mustache seemed darker now, and there were streaks of black in his gray hair.

He smiled, showing his iron teeth, saying, he feels good, now. Ahh. Some things linger, and blood lingers longest. They walked back across the meadow to where they’d parked the VW bus. Czerno lit a cigarette, but didn’t cough, and says, they did it with the hammer, Grimnir, he’d talk of the gallows and the spear, but for him, it’s one thing…

He reached out a nicotine-colored finger and tapped it, hard, in the center of Shadow’s forehead. Shadow states politely, please don’t do this. Czerno mimicked, please don’t do this, one day he’ll take his hammer and do much worse than this to him, his friend, remember? Shadow replies, yes, but if he taps his head again, he’ll break his hand.

Czerno snorted, then said, they should be grateful, the people here. There was such power raised. Even 30 years after they forced his people into hiding, this land, this very land, gave them the greatest movie star of all time. She was the greatest there ever was.

Shadow asked, Judy Garland? Czerno shook his head curtly. Nancy replies, he’s talking about Louise Brooks. Shadow decided not to ask who Louise Brooks was.

Instead he said, so look when Wed went to talk to them he did it under a truce. The reply, yes. Shadow states, and now they’re going to get Wed’s body from them as a truce, the reply, yes. He continues, we know they want him dead or out of the way.

Nancy replies, they want all of them dead. Shadow asks, so what he doesn’t get is, why do they think they’ll play fair this time, when they didn’t for Wed? Czerno says, this is why they’re meeting at the center. Is… he frowned and continued, what’s the word for it? The opposite of sacred?

Shadow without thinking says, profane. Over enunciating each word, as he would for a deaf foreign idiot child, Czerno says, no, he means, when a place is less sacred than any other place. Of negative sacredness. Places where they can build no temples. Places where people will not come, and will leave as soon as they can. Places where gods only walk if they’re forced to.

Shadow says, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t think there is a word for it. Czerno says, all of America has it, a little, this is why they’re not welcome here, but the center, the center is worse. Is like a minefield. They’ll all tread too carefully there to dare break the truce.

Mr. Nancy says, he told him all this already, Shadow replying, whatever. They’d reached the bus. Czerno patted Shadow’s upper arm, and says, with gloomy reassurance, he don’t worry, nobody else is going to kill him. Nobody but him.

Shadow found the center of America at evening this same day, before it was fully dark. It was on a slight hill to the northwest of Lebanon. He drove around the little hillside park, past the tiny mobile chapel and the stone monument, and when Shadow saw the one-story 1950s motel at the edge of the park his heart sank. There was a huge black car parked in front of it - a Humvee, which looked like a jeep reflected in a fun-house mirror, as squat and pointless and ugly as an armored car.

There were no lights on in the building. They parked beside the motel, and as they did so, a man in a chauffeur’s uniform and cap walked out of the motel and was illuminated by the headlights of the bus. He touched his cap to them, politely, got into the Humvee, and drove off. Mr. Nancy says, big car, tiny dick.

Shadow asks, does he think they’ll even have beds here? It’s been days since he slept in a bed. This place looks like it’s just waiting to be demolished. Mr. Nancy replies, it’s owned by hunters from TX. Come up here once a year. Damned if he knew what they’re huntin’. It stops the place being condemned and destroyed.

They climbed out of the bus. Waiting for them in front of the motel was a woman Shadow didn’t recognize. She was perfectly made-up, perfectly coiffed. She reminded him of every newscaster he’d ever seen on morning crowd.

She says, lovely to see him, now, he must be Czerno. She’s heard a lot about him and he’s Anansi, always up to mischief, eh? Jolly old man and he, he must be Shadow. He’s certainly led them a merry chase, hasn’t he?

A hand took his, pressed it firmly, looked him straight in the eye. She’s Media. Good to meet him. She hopes they can get this evening’s business done as pleasantly as possible.

The main doors opened. The fat kid Shadow had last seen sitting in a limo said, somehow, Toto, he doesn’t believe they’re in KS any more. Mr Nancy replied, they’re in KS. He thinks they must’ve driven through most of it today. Damn but this country is flat.

The fat kid said, this place has no lights, no power, and no hot water, and no offense, them people really need the hot water. He just smells like he’s been in this bus for a week. The woman smoothly said, she doesn’t think there’s any need to go there. They’re all friends here. Come in. They’ll show them to their rooms. They took the first 4 rooms. Their late friend is in the 5th. All the one’s beyond room 5 are empty - they can take their pick. She’s afraid it’s not 4 Seasons, but then, what is?

She opened the door to the motel lobby for them. It smelled of mildew, of damp and dust and of decay. There was a man sitting in the lobby, in the near darkness and asked, them people hungry? Mr Nancy replies, he can always eat.

The man said, driver’s gone out for a sack of hamburgers, he’ll be back soon. He looked up. It was too dark to see faces, but he said, big guy. He’s Shadow, huh? The asshole who killed Woody and Stone?

Shadow replies, no, this was someone else, and he knows who he is. He did. He’d been inside the man’s head, and says, he’s Town. Has he slept with Wood’s widow yet?

Mr Town fell off his chair. In a movie, it’d have been funny, in real life it was simply clumsy. He stood up quickly, came toward Shadow. Shadow looked down at him and said, don’t start anything he’s not prepared to finish.

Mr Nancy rested his hand on Shadow’s upper arm and said, truce, remember? They’re at the center. Mr Town turned away, leaned over to the counter and picked up 3 keys, and says, they’re down at the end of the hall, here. He handed the keys to Mr Nancy and walked away, into the shadows of the corridor.

They heard a motel door open, and they heard it slam. Mr Nancy passed a key to Shadow, another to Czerno. Shadow asks, is there a flashlight on the bus? Mr Nancy replies, no, but it’s just dark. He mustn’t be afraid of the dark.

Shadow says, he’s not, he’s afraid of the people in the dark. Czerno states, dark is good. He seemed to have no difficulty seeing where he was going, leading them down the darkened corridor, putting the keys into the locks without fumbling, and tells them, he’ll be in room 10, and then says, Media. He thinks he’s heard of her. Isn’t she the one who killed her children?

Mr Nancy replies, different woman, same deal. Mr Nancy was in room 8, and Shadow opposite the 2 of them, in room 9. The room smelled damp, and dusty, and deserted. There was a bed-frame in there, with a mattress on it, but no sheets.

A little light entered the room from the gloaming outside the window. Shadow sat down on the mattress, pulled off his shoes and stretched out at full length. He’d driven too much in the last few days. Perhaps he slept.

He was walking. A cold wind tugged at his clothes. The tiny snowflakes were little more than a crystalline dust which gusted and flurried in the wind. There were trees, bare of leaves in the winter.

There were high hills on each side of him. It was late on a winter’s afternoon: the sky and the snow had attained the same deep shade of purple. Somewhere ahead of him-in this light, distances were impossible to judge - the flames of a bonfire flickered, yellow and orange. A gray wolf padded through the snow before him.

Shadow stopped. The wolf stopped also, and turned, and waited. One of its eyes glinted yellowish-green. Shadow shrugged and walked toward the flames and the wolf ambled ahead of him.

The bonfire burned in the middle of a grove of trees. There must’ve been a hundred trees, planted in 2 rows. There were shapes hanging from the trees. At the end of the rows was a building which looked a little like an overturned boat.

It was carved of wood, and it crawled with wooden creatures and wooden faces - dragons, gryphons, trolls and boars - all of them dancing in the flickering light of the fire. The bonfire was so high, and burning so hard, Shadow could barely approach it. The wolf seemed unfazed, and light padded around the crackling fire. He waited for it to return, but in place of the wolf a man walked back around the fire.

He was leaning on a tall stick. The man in a familiar, gravelly voice said, he is in Uppsala, in Sweden, about a thousand years ago. Shadow asks, Wed? The man who might’ve been Wed continued to talk, as if Shadow wasn’t there, first every year, then, later, when the rot set in, and they become lax, every 9 years, they’d sacrifice here.

A sacrifice of 9s, Each day, for 9 days, they’d hang 9 animals from trees in the grove. One of those animals was always a man. He strode away from the firelight, toward the trees, and shadow followed him. As he approached the trees the shapes which hung form them resolved: legs and eyes and tongues and heads.

Shadow shook his head: there was something about seeing a bull hanging by its neck from a tree which was darkly sad, and at the same time surreal enough almost to be funny. Shadow passed a hanging stag, a wolfhound, a brown bear, and a chestnut horse with a white mane, little bigger than a pony. The dog was still alive: every few seconds it’d kick spasmodically, and it was making a strained whimpering noise, as it dangled from the roped. The man he was following took his long stick, which Shadow realized now, as it moved, was actually a spear, and he slashed at the dog’s stomach with it, in one knife-like cut downward.

Steaming entrails tumbled onto the snow, the man formally saying, he dedicates this death to Odin. Turning back to Shadow, he says, it’s only a gesture, but gestures mean everything. The death of one dog symbolizes the death of all dogs. 9 men they gave to him, but they stood for all the men, all the blood, all the power.

It just wasn’t enough. One day, the blood stopped flowing. Belief without blood only takes us so far. The blood must flow. Shadow states, he saw him die.

The figure - and now Shadow was certain it was Wed, nobody else had this rasp, this deep cynical joy in words, says, in the god business it’s not the death which matters. It’s the opportunity for resurrection, and when the blood flows… He gestured at the animals, at the people, hanging from the trees. Shadow couldn’t decide whether the dead humans they walked past were more or less horrifying then the animals: at least the humans had known the fate they were going to.

There was a deep, boozy smell about the men which suggested they’d been allowed to anaesthetize themselves on their way to the gallows, while the animals would simply have been lynched, hauled up alive and terrified. The faces of the men looked so young: none of them was older than 20. Shadow asks, who is he? The man replies, he’s a diversion, he was an opportunity.

He gave the whole affair an air of credibility he would’ve been hard put to deliver solo. Although both of us are committed enough to the affair to die for it. Eh? Shadow asks, who is he? The man replies, the hardest part is simply surviving.

The bonfire - and Shadow realized with a strange horror it truly was a bon-fire: ribcages and fire-eyed skulls stared and stuck and jutted from the flames, sputtering trace-element colors into the night, greens and yellows and blues - was flaring and crackling and burning hotly, he says, 3 days on the tree, 3 days in the underworld, 3 days to find his way back. The flames sputtered and flared too brightly for Shadow to look at directly. He looked down into the darkness beneath the trees. There was no fire, no snow. There were no trees, no hanged bodies, no bloody spear.

A knock on the door - and now there was moonlight coming in the window. Shadow sat up with a start. Media’s voice said, dinner’s served. Shadow put his shoes back on, walked over to the door, went out into the corridor.

Someone had found some candles, and a dim yellow light illuminated the reception hall. The driver of the Humvee came in through the swing doors holding a cardboard tray and a paper sack. He wore a long black coat and a peaked chauffeur’s cap. He says hoarsely, sorry about the delay, he got everybody the same: a couple of burgers, large fries, large Coke, and apple pie.

He’ll eat his out in the car. He put the food down, then walked back outside. The smell of fast food filled the lobby. Shadow took the paper bag and passed out the food, the napkins, the packets of ketchup.

They at in silence while the candles flickered and the burning wax hissed. Shadow noticed Town was glaring at him. He turned his chair a little, so his back was to the wall. Media ate her burgers with a napkin poised by her lips to remove crumbs.

The fat kids says, oh. Great. These burgers are nearly cold. He was still wearing his shades, which Shadow thought pointless and foolish, given the darkness of the room. Town says, sorry about this. The guy had to drive a way to find them. The nearest McDonald’s is in Nebraska.

They finished their lukewarm hamburgers and cold fries. The fat kid bit into his single-person apple pie, and the filling spurted down his chin. Unexpectedly, the filling was still hot. He says, ow.

He wiped at it with his hand, licking his fingers to get them clean and says, this stuff burns! Those pies are a class action suit waiting to fucking happen. Shadow realized he wanted to hit the kid. He’d wanted to hit him since the kid had his goons hurt him in the limo, after Laura’s funeral.

He knew it wasn’t a wise thing to be thinking, not here, not now, and asks, can’t we just take Wed’s body and get out of here? Mr Nancy and the fat kid reply at the same time, midnight. Czerno says, these things must be done according to the rules, all things have rules. Shadow says, yeah, but nobody tells him what they are.

They keep talking about the goddamn rules, he doesn’t even know what game them people are playing. Media brightly says, it’s like breaking the street date, you know. When things are allowed to be on sale. Town said, he thinks the whole thing’s a crock of shit, but if their rules make them happy, then his agency is happy and everybody’s happy.

He slurped his Coke and continues, roll on midnight. They take the body, they go away. We’re all lovey-fucking-dovey and we wave them goodbye, and then we can get on with hunting them down like the rats they are. The fat kid says to Shadow, hey, reminds him. He told him to tell his boss he was history. Did he ever tell him?

Shadow says, he told him, and he know what he said to him? He said to tell the little snot, if ever he saw him again, to remember today’s future is tomorrow’s yesterday. Wed never said any such thing, but Shadow delivered it as Wed would’ve done. These people seemed to like cliches.

The black sunglasses reflected the flickering candle-flames back at him, like eyes. The fat kid said, this place is such a fucking dump. No power. Out of wireless range. He means, when one’s got to be wired, one is already back in the Stone Age.

He sucked the last of his Coke through the straw, dropped the cup on the table and walked away down the corridor. Shadow reached over and placed the fat kid’s garbage back into the paper sack and announces, he’s going to see the center of America. He got up and walked outside, into the night. Mr Nancy followed him.

They strolled together, across the little park, saying nothing until they reached the stone monument. The wind gusted at them, fitfully, first from one direction then from another. He says, so, now what? The half-moon hung pale in the dark sky.

Nancy said, now, he should go back to his room. Lock the door. He try to get some more sleep. At midnight they give us the body and then we get the hell out of here. The center isn’t a stable place for anybody.

Shadow replies, if he says so. Mr. Nancy inhaled on his cigarillo and says, this should never have happened. None of this should’ve happened. Our kind of people, were… he waved the cigarillo about, as if using it to hunt for a word, then stabbing forward with it, saying, … exclusive.

We’re not social. Not even him. Not even Bacchus. Not for long. We walk by ourselves or we stay in our own little groups. We don’t play well with others. We like to be adored and respected and worshiped - him, he likes them to be tellin’ tales about him tales shaving his cleverness.

It’s a fault, you know, but it’s the way he is. We like to be big. Now, in these shabby days, we’re small. The new gods rise and fall and rise gain, but this isn’t a country which tolerates gods for long.

Brahma creates, Vishnu preserves, Shiva destroys, and the ground is clear for Brahma to create once more. Shadow asks, so what is he saying? The fighting’s over, now? The battle’s done? Mr. Nancy snorted and asks, is he out of his mind?

They killed Wed. They killed him and they bragged about it. They spread the word. They’ve showed it on every channel to those with eyes to see it. No, Shadow.

It’s only just begun. He bent down at the foot of the stone monument, stubbed out his cigarillo on the earth, and left it there, like an offering. Shadow said, he used to make jokes, he doesn’t any more. Nancy replies, it’s hard to find the jokes these days. Wed’s dead. Is he comin’ inside?

Shadow says, soon. Nancy walked away, toward the motel. Shadow reached out his hand and touched the monument’s stones. He dragged his big fingers across the cold brass plate.

Then he turned and walked over to the tiny white church, walked through the open doorway, into the darkness. He sat down in the nearest pew and closed his eyes and lowered his head, and thought about Laura, and about Wed, and about being alive. There was a click from behind him, and a scuff of shoe against earth. Shadow sat up, and turned.

Someone stood just outside the open doorway, a dark shape against the stars. Moonlight glinted from something metal. Shadow asks, he going to shoot him? Mr Town replies, Jesus - he wishes, it’s only for self-defense. So, he’s praying? Have they got him thinking they’re gods? They aren’t gods.

Shadow replies, he wasn’t praying, just thinking. Town states, the way he figures it, they’re mutations. Evolutionary experiments. A little hypnotic ability, a little hocus-pocus, and they can make people believe anything.

Nothing to write home about. This is all. They die like men, after all. Shadow replies, they always did. He got up, and Town took a step back. Shadow walked out of the little chapel, and Mr Town kept his distance.

Shadow says, hey, does he know who Louise Brooks was? Town asks, friend of his? Shadow says, nope. She was a movie star from south of here. Town paused, and says, maybe she changed her name, and became Liz Taylor or Sharon Stone or someone, he suggested helpfully.

Shadow replies, maybe, and started to walk back to the motel. Town kept pace with him. Mr Town says, he should be back in prison, he should be on fucking death row. Shadow replies, he didn’t kill his associates, but he’ll tell him something a guy once told him, back when he was in prison.

Something he’s never forgotten. Town asks, and this is? Shadow states, there was only one guy in the whole Bible Jesus ever personally promised a place with him in Paradise. Not Peter, not Paul, not any of those guys.

He was a convicted thief, being executed. So don’t knock the guys on death row. Maybe they know something he doesn’t. The driver stood by the Humvee and as they passed says, good night, gentlemen. Town replies, night, and then he says to Shadow, he personally doesn’t give a fuck about any of this.

What he does, is what Mr World says. It’s easier this way. Shadow walked down the corridor to room 9. He unlocked the door, went inside, and says, sorry, he thought this was his room.

Media says, it is, she was waiting for him. He could see her hair in the moonlight, and her pale face. She was sitting on his bed, primly. He says, he’ll find another room.

She replies, she won’t be here for long, she just thought it might be an appropriate time to make him an offer. Shadow states, ok. Make the offer. She says, relax, there was a smile in her voice, continuing, he has such a stick up his butt. Look, Wed’s dead. He doesn’t owe anyone anything. Throw in with us. Time to Come Over to the Winning Team.

Shadow said nothing. She continues, we can make him famous, Shadow. We can give him power over what people believe and say and wear and dream. He want to be the next Cary Grant? We can make this happen. We can make him the next Beatles.

Shadow replies, he thinks he preferred it when she was offering to show him Lucy’s tits. If this was her. She says, ah. Shadow says, he needs his room back. Good night.

Not moving, as if he hadn’t spoken, she says, and then of course, we can turn it all around. We can make it bad for him. He could be a bad joke forever, Shadow. Or he could be remembered as a monster. He could be remembered forever, but as a Manson, a Hitler… how would he like this?

Shadow says, he’s sorry, ma’am, but he’s kind of tired. He’d be grateful if she’d leave now. She replies, she offered him the world, when he’s dying in a gutter, he remember this. He says, he’ll make a point of it.

After she’d gone her perfume lingered. He lay on the bare mattress and thought about Laura, but whatever he thought about - Laura playing Frisbee, Laura eating a root-beer float without a spoon, Laura giggling, showing off the exotic underwear she’d bought when she attended a travel agent’s convention in Anaheim - always morphed in his mind, into Laura sucking Robbie’s cock as a truck slammed them off the road and into oblivion, and then he heard her words, and they hurt every time. Laura said, he’s not dead, in her quiet voice, in his head, but she’s not sure he’s alive, either. There was a knock.

Shadow got up and opened the door. It was the fat kid, he saying, those hamburgers, they were just icky. Can he believe it? 50 miles from McDonald’s. He didn’t think there was any where in the world which was 50 miles from a McDonald’s.

Shadow says, this place is turning into Grand Central Station, ok, so he guesses he’s here to offer him the freedom of the Internet if he comes over to his side of the fence, right? The fat kid was shivering and says, no. He’s already dead meat. He - he’s a fucking illuminated gothic black-letter manuscript.

He couldn’t be hypertext if he tried. He…he’s synaptic, while, while he’s synoptic… He smelled strange, Shadow realized. There was a guy in the cell across the way, whose name Shadow had never known. He’d taken off all his clothes in the middle of the day and told everyone he’d been sent to take them away, the truly good one’s, like him, in a silver spaceship to a perfect place.

This had been the last time Shadow had seen him. The fat kid smelled like this guy. Shadow asks, is he here for a reason? The fat kid replies, just wanted to talk.

There was a whine in his voice, and continues, it’s creepy in his room. This is all. It’s creepy in there. 50 miles to a McDonald’s, can he believe this? Maybe he could stay in here with him.

Shadow asks, what about his friends from the limo? The one’s who hit him? Shouldn’t he ask them to stay with him? He replies, the children wouldn’t operate out here. We’re in a dead zone.

Shadow says, it’s a while until midnight, and it’s longer to dawn. He thinks maybe he needs rest. He knows he does. The fat kid said nothing for a moment, then he nodded, and walked out of the room.

Shadow closed his door, and locked it with the key. He lay back on the mattress. After a few moments the noise began. It took him a few moments to figure out what it had to be, then he unlocked his door and walked out into the hallway.

It was the fat kid, now back in his own room. It sounded like he was throwing something huge against the walls of the room. From the sounds, Shadow guessed what he was throwing was himself. He was sobbing, it’s just me! Or perhaps, it’s just meat.

Shadow couldn’t tell. From Czerno’s room down the hall, came a bellow, quiet! Shadow walked down to the lobby and out of the motel. He was tired. The driver still stood beside the Humvee, a dark shape in a peaked cap, and asks, couldn’t sleep, sir?

Shadow replies, no. He asks, cigarette, sir? Shadow replies, no, thank you. He asks, he mind if he does? Shadow replies, go right ahead. The driver used a Bic disposable lighter, and it was in the yellow light of the flame Shadow saw the man’s face, actually saw it for the first time, and recognized him, and started to understand.

Shadow knew this thin face. He knew there’d be close-cropped orange hair beneath the black driver’s cap, cut close to the scalp like the embers of a fire. He knew when the man’s lips smiled they’d crease into a network of rough scars. The driver said, he’s looking good, big guy.

Shadow stared at his old cellmate warily, and asks, Low Key? Prison friendships are good things: they get one through bad places and through dark times, but a prison friendship ends at the prison gates, and a prison friend who reappears in one’s life is at best a mixed blessing. Shadow says, Jesus. Low Key Lyesmith, and then he heard what he was saying and he understood, and said, Loki, Loki Lie-Smith.

Loki replies, he’s slow, but he gets there in the end, and his lips twisted into a crooked smile and embers danced in the shadows of his eyes. They sat in Shadow’s room in the abandoned motel, sitting on the bed, at opposite ends of the mattress. The sounds from the fat kid’s room had pretty much stopped. Shadow says, he lied to him.

Loki replies, it’s one of the things he’s good at, but he was lucky they were inside together. He would never have survive his first year without him. Shadow asks, he couldn’t have walked out if he wanted? Loki replies, it’s easier just to do the time.

He has to understand the god thing. It’s not magic. Not exactly. It’s about focus. It’s about being him, but the him people believe in. It’s about being the concentrated, magnified essence of him.

It’s about becoming thunder, or the power of a running horse, or wisdom. He takes all the believe, all the prayers, and they become a kind of certainty, something which lets him become bigger, cooler, more than human. He crystallizes. He paused, then continues, and then one day they forget about him, and they don’t believe in him, and they don’t sacrifice, and they don’t care, and the next thing you know he’s running a 3 card monte game on the corner of Broadway and 43rd.

Shadow asks, why was he in his cell? Loki replies, coincidence. Pure and simple. This was where they put him. He doesn’t believe him? It’s true. Shadow states, driving for the opposition. Loki replies, if he wants to call them this. It depends where he’s standing. The way he figures it he’s driving for the winning team.

Shadow says, but he and Wed, they were from the same, they’re both… Loki supplies, Norse pantheon. We’re both from the Norse pantheon. Is this what he’s trying to say?

Shadow agrees, yeah. Loki asks, so? Shadow hesitates, then says, he must’ve been friends. Once. Loki replies, no. We were never friends. He’s not sorry he’s dead. He was just holding the rest of us back. With him gone, the rest of them are going to have to face up to the facts: it’s change or die, evolve or perish. He’s all for evolution - it’s the old change-or-die game. He’s dead. War’s over.

Shadow looked at him, puzzled and says, he isn’t this stupid. He was always so sharp. Wed’s death isn’t going to end anything. It’s just pushed all the one’s who were on the fence over the edge.

Loki replies, mixing metaphors, Shadow. Bad habit. Shadow replies, whatever. It’s still true. Jesus. His death did in an instant what he’d spent the last few months trying to do. It united them. It gave them something to believe in. Loki shrugged saying, perhaps, as far as he knows, the thinking on this side of the fence was with the troublemaker out of the way, the trouble would also be gone. It’s not any of his business, though. He just drives.

Shadow says, so tell him, why does everyone care about him? They act like he’s important. Why does it matter what he does. Loki says, he’s an investment, he’s important to us because he was important to Wed. As for the why of it… he doesn’t think any of us know. He did. He’s dead. Just another one of life’s little mysteries. Shadow states, he’s tired of mysteries. Loki says, yeah? He thinks they add a kind of zest to the world.

Like salt in a stew. Shadow says, so he’s their driver. He drive for all of them? Loki replies, whoever needs him, it’s a living. He raised his wristwatch to his face, pressed a button: the dial glowed a gentle blue, which illuminated his face, giving it a haunting, haunted appearance.

Loki said, five to midnight. Time. Time to light the candles. Say a few words about the dearly departed. Do the formalities. He coming? Shadow took a deep breath and says, he’s coming. They walked down the dark motel corridor. Loki says, he brought some candles for this, but there were plenty of old ones around too.

Old stumps and stubs and candle-ends in the rooms, and in a box in a closet. He doesn’t think he missed any, and he got a box of matches. He start lighting candles with a lighter, the end gets too hot. They reached room 5.

Loki asked, he want to come in? Shadow didn’t want to enter this room, but says, okay. They went in. Loki took a box of matches from his pocket, and thumb-nailed a match into flame. The momentary flare hurt Shadow’s eyes.

A candlewick flickered and caught, and another Loki lit a new match, and continued to light candles: they were on the windowsills and on the headboard of the bed and on the sink in the corner of the room. They showed him the room by candlelight. The bed had been hauled form its position against the wall into the middle of the motel room leaving a few feet of space between the bed and the wall on each side. There were sheets draped over the bed, old motel sheets, moth-holed and stained, which Loki must have found in a closet somewhere.

On top of the sheets lay Wed, perfectly still. He was fully dressed, in the pale suit he’d been wearing when he was shot. The right side of his face was untouched, perfect, unmarred, by blood. The left side of his face was a ragged mess, and the left shoulder and front of the suit was spattered with dark spots, a pointillist mess.

His hands were at his sides. The expression on this wreck of a face was far from peaceful: it looked hurt - a soul-hurt, a real down deep hurt, filled with hatred and anger and raw craziness, and, on some level, it looked satisfied. Shadow imagined Mr. Jacquel’s practiced hands smoothing this hatred and pain away, rebuilding a face for Wed with mortician’s wax and make-up, giving him a final peace and dignity which even death had denied him. Still, the body seemed no smaller in death.

It hadn’t shrunk, and it still smelled faintly of Jack Daniels. The wind from the plains was rising: he could hear it howling around the old motel at the exact imaginary center of America. The candles on the windowsill guttered and flickered. He could hear footsteps in the hallway.

Someone knocked on a door, called, hurry up please, it’s time, and they began to shuffle in, heads lowered. Town came in first, followed by Media and Mr. Nancy and Czerno. Last of all came the fat kid: he had red fresh bruises on his face, and his lips were moving all the time, as if he were reciting some words to himself, but he was making no sound. Shadow found himself feeling sorry for him.

Informally, without a word being spoken, they ranged themselves about the body, each an arms length away from the next. The atmosphere in the room was religious - deeply religious, in a way which Shadow had never previously explained. There was no sound but the howling of the wind and the crackling of the candles. Loki said, we’re come together here in this godless place to pass on the body of this individual to those who will dispose of it properly according to the rites.

If anyone would like to say something, say it now. Town says, not him, he never properly met the guy, and this whole thing makes him feel uncomfortable. Czerno says, these actions will have consequences. They know this? This can only be the start of it all.

The fat kid started to giggle; a high-pitched, girlish noise, he saying, okay, ok he’s got it, and then, all on one note, he recited:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold… and then he broke off, his brow creasing. He said, shit. He used to know the whole thing, and he rubbed his temples and made a face and was quiet, and then they were all looking at Shadow. The wind was screaming now.

He didn’t know what to say. He said, this whole thing is pitiful. Half of them killed or had a hand in his death. Now they’re giving us his body. Great. He was an irascible (hot temper, easily angered) old fuck but he drank his mead and he’s still working for him. This is all.

Media said, in a world where people die every day, she thinks the important thing to remember is for each moment of sorrow we get when people leave this world there’s a corresponding moment of joy when a new baby comes into this world. The first wail is - well, it’s magic, isn’t it? Perhaps it’s a hard thing to say, but joy and sorrow are like milk and cookies. This is how well they go together.

She thinks we should all take a moment to meditate on this, and Mr. Nancy clears his throat, and said, so. He got to say it, because nobody else here will. We’re at the center of this place: a land which has no time for gods, and here at the center it has less time for us than anywhere. It’s a no-man’s land, a place of truce, and we observe our truces, here. We have no choice. So. They give us the body of our friend. We accept it. They will pay for this, murder for murder, blood for blood.

Town said, whatever. They could save themselves a lot of time and effort by going back to their homes and shooting themselves in the heads. Cut out the middleman.

Czerno says, fuck him, fuck him and fuck his mother and fuck the fucking horse he fucking road in on. He will not even die in battle. No warrior will taste his blood. No one alive will take his life. He’ll die a soft, poor death. He’ll die with a kiss on his lips and a lie in his heart.

Town said, leave it, old man. The fat kid says, the blood-dimmed tied is loose. He thinks this comes next. The wind howled. Loki says, okay, he’s theirs. We’re done. Take the old bastard away.

He made a gesture with his fingers, and Town, Media and the fat kid left the room. He smiled at Shadow and says, call no man happy, huh, kid?, and then he, too, walked away. Shadow asks, what happens now? Anansi says, now we wrap him up, and we take him away from here.

They wrapped the body in the motel sheets, wrapped it well in its impromptu shroud, so there was no body to be seen, and they could carry it. The 2 old men walked to each end of the body, but Shadow said, let him see something, and he bent his knees and slipped his arms around the white-sheeted figure, pushed him up and over easily. He says, okay, he’s got him. Let’s put him into the back of the car.

Czerno looked as if he were about to argue, but he closed his mouth. He spat on his forefinger and thumb and began to sniff the candles between his fingertips. Shadow could hear them fizz as he walked from the darkening room. Wed was heavy, but Shadow could cope, if he walked steadily.

He had no choice. Wed’s words were in his head with every step he took along, the corridor and he could taste the sour-sweetness of mead in the back of his throat. He works for him. He protects him. He helps him. He transports him from place to place. He investigates, from time to time - go places and asks questions for him. He runs errands. In an emergency, but only in an emergency, he hurts people who need to be hurt. In the unlikely event of his death, he’ll hold his vigil…

A deal was a deal, and this one was in his blood and his bones. Mr Nancy opened the motel lobby door for him, then hurried over and opened the back of the bus. The other 4 were already standing by their Humvee, watching them as if they couldn’t wait to be off. Loki had put his driver’s cap back on.

The cold wind shipped at the sheets, tugged at Shadow as he walked. He placed Wed down as gently as he could in the back of the bus. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned. Town stood there with his hand out.

He was holding something. Town said, here, Mr World wanted him to have this. It was a glass eye. There was a hairline crack down the middle of it, and a tiny chip gone from the front. We found it in the Masonic hall, when we were cleaning up. Keep it for luck. God knows he’ll need it.

Shadow closed his hand around the eye. He wished he could come back with something smart and sharp and clever, but Town was already back at the Humvee, and climbing up and into the car, and Shadow still couldn’t think of anything clever to say. Czerno was the last person out of the motel. As he locked the building he watched the Humvee pull out of the park and head off down the blacktop.

He put the key to the motel beneath a rock by the lobby door, and he shook his head, saying to Shadow conversationally, he should’ve eaten his heart, not just cursed his death. He needs to be taught respect. He climbed into the back of the bus. Mr Nancy says to Shadow, he ride shotgun, he’ll drive awhile.

He drove east. Dawn found them in Princeton, Missouri. Shadow hadn’t slept yet. Nancy said, anywhere he want us to drop him? If he was him, he’d rustle up some ID and head for CAN. Or MX.

Shadow says, he’s sticking with them guys. It’s what Wed would’ve wanted. Nancy replies, he isn’t working for him any more. He’s dead. Once we drop his body off, he’s free to go. Shadow asks, and do what? Nancy states, keep out of the way, while the war is on. Like he says, he should leave the country.

He flipped his turn signal, and took a left. Czerno says, hide himself, for a little time, then, when this is over, he’ll come back to him, and he’ll finish the whole thing. With his hammer. Shadow asks, where are we taking the body? Nancy replies, VA. There’s a tree.

Czerno adds with a gloomy satisfaction, a world tree, we had one in his part of the world, but ours grew under the world not above it. Nancy says, we put him at the foot of the tree, we leave him there. We let him go. We drive south. There’s a battle. Blood is shed. Many die. The world changes, a little. Shadow asks, they don’t want him at their battle? He pretty big. It’s good in a fight. Nancy turned his head to Shadow and smiled - the first real smile Shadow had seen on Nancy’s face since he’d rescued Shadow from the Lumber City Jail.

Nancy continues, most of this battle will be fought in a place he can’t go, and can’t touch. Czerno states, in the hearts and minds of the people, like at the big roundabout. Shadow says, huh? Nancy says, the carousel.

Shadow says, oh. Backstage, he’s got it. Like the desert with all the bones in it. Nancy raised his head and says, Backstage, yes. Every time he figures he don’t have enough sense to bring guts to a bear, he surprises him. This is right. Backstage. This is where the real battle will happen. Everything else will just be flash and thunder. Shadow says, tell him about the vigil. Nancy says, someone has to stay with the body. It’s a tradition. One of our people will do it.

Shadow says, he wanted him to do it. Czerno says, no, it’ll kill him. Bad, bad, bad idea. Shadow asks, yeah? It’ll kill him? To stay with his body? Mr. Nancy says, it’s what happens when the all-father dies. It wouldn’t be true for him. When he dies, he just wants them to plant him somewhere warm, and then when pretty women walk over his grave he’d grab their ankles, like in that movie.

Czerno says, he never saw this movie. Nancy replies, of course he did. It’s right at the end. It’s the high school movie. All the children go to the prom. Czerno shook his head. Shadow says, the film’s called Carrie, Mr Czerno. Ok, one of them tell him about the vigil.

Nancy says, he tell him. He’s drivin’. Czerno says, he never heard of no film called Carrie. He tell him. Nancy says, the person on the vigil - gets tied to the tree. Just like Wed was, and then they hang there for 9 days and 9 nights. No food, no water. All alone. At the end they cut the person down, and if they lived… well, it could happen, and Wed will have had his vigil. Czerno says, maybe Alviss will send us one of his people. A dwarf could survive it.

Shadow says, he’ll do it. Mr Nancy says, no. Shadow replies, yes. The 2 old men were silent. Then Nancy asks, why? Shadow says, because it’s the kind of thing a living person would do.

Czerno replies, he’s crazy. Shadow states, maybe, but he’s going to hold Wed’s vigil. When they stopped for gas Czerno announced he felt sick, and wanted to ride in the front. Shadow didn’t mid moving to the back of the bus.

He could stretch out more, and sleep. They drove on in silence. Shadow felt he’d done something very big and very strong, and he wasn’t certain exactly what it was. Mr. Nancy says after awhile, hey, Czerno, he check out the technical boy back at the motel? He wasn’t happy. He’s been screwin’ with something which screwed him right back. This is the biggest trouble with the new kids - they figure they know everythin’, and they can’t teach them nothin’ but the hard way.

Czerno says, good. Shadow was stretched out full length on the seat in the back. He felt like 2 people, or more than 2. There was a part of him which felt gently exhilarated: he’d done something.

He’d moved. It wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t wanted to live, but he did want to live, and this made all the difference. He hoped he’d live through this, but he was willing to die, if this was what it took to be alive, and for a moment, he thought the whole thing was funny, just the funniest thing in the world, and he wondered if Laura would appreciate the joke. There was another part of him - maybe it was Mike Ainsel, he thought, vanished off into nothing at the press of a button in the Lakeside Police Dept. - who was still trying to figure it all out, trying to see the big picture.

He says out loud, hidden Indians. Czerno’s irritated croak from the front seat came, what? Shadow says, the pictures they’d get to color in as kids. ‘Can you see the hidden Indians in this picture? There are 10 Indians in this picture, can you find them all?’ and at first glance they could only see the waterfall and rocks and trees, then they see if they just tip the picture on its side the shadow is an Indian… he yawned.

Czerno suggests, sleep. Shadow says, but the big picture. Then he slept, and dreamed of hidden Indians. The tree was in VA.

It was a long way away from anywhere, on the back of an old farm. To get to the farm they had to drive for almost an hour south from Blacksburg, to drive roads with names like Penny Winkle Branch and Rooster Spur. They got turned around twice and Mr. Nancy and Czerno both lost their tempers with Shadow and with each other. They stopped to get directions at a tiny general store, set at the bottom of the hill in the place where the road forked.

An old man came out of the back of the store and stared at them: he wore OshKosh B’gosh denim overalls and nothing else, not even shoes. Czerno, bought a pickled hog’s foot from the huge jar of hogs feet on the counter, and went outside to eat it on the deck, while Nancy and the man in overalls took turns drawing each other maps on the back of napkins, marking off turning and local landmarks. They set off once more, with Mr Nancy driving, and they were there in 10 minutes. A sign on the gate said ASH.

Shadow got out of the bus, and opened the gate. The bus drove through, jolting through the meadowland. Shadow closed the gate. He walked a little behind the bus, stretching his legs, jogging when the bus got too far in front of him.

Enjoying the sensation of moving his body. He’d lost all sense of time on the drive from KS. Had they been driving for 2 days? 3 days? He didn’t know. The body in the back of the bus didn’t seem to be rotting.

He could smell it - a faint odor of Jack Daniels, overlaid with something which might have been sour honey, but the smell wasn’t unpleasant. From time to time he’d take out the glass eye from his pocket and look at it: it was shattered deep inside, fractured from what he imagined was the impact of a bullet, but apart from a chip to one side of the iris the surface was unmarred. Shadow would run it through his hands, palming it, rolling it, pushing it along with his fingers. It was a ghastly souvenir, but oddly comforting: and he suspected it’d have amused Wed to know his eye had wound up in Shadow’s pocket.

The farmhouse was dark and shut up. The meadows were overgrown and seemed abandoned. The building’s roof was crumbling at the back, it was covered in black plastic sheeting. They jolted over a ridge and Shadow saw the tree.

It was silver-gray and it was higher than the farmhouse. It was the most beautiful tree Shadow had ever seen: spectral and yet utterly real and almost perfectly symmetrical. It also looked instantly familiar: he wondered if he’d dreamed it, then realized no, he’d seen it before, or a representation of it, many times. It was Wed’s silver tiepin.

The VW bus jolted and bumped across the meadow, and came to a stop about 20 feet from the trunk of the tree. There were 3 women standing by the tree. At first glance Shadow thought they were the Zorya, but he realized in moments, he was mistaken. They were 3 women he didn’t know.

They looked tired and bored, as if they’d been standing there for a long time. Each of them held a wooden ladder. The biggest one of them also carried a brown sack. They looked like a set of Russian dolls: a tall one - she was Shadow’s height, or even taller - a middle-sized one, and a woman so short and hunched at first glance Shadow wrongly supposed her to be a child.

Still they looked so much alike - something in the forehead, or the eyes, or the set of the chin - Shadow was certain the women must be sisters. The smallest of the women dropped to a curtsy when the bus drew up. The other 2 just stared. They were sharing a cigarette, and they smoked it down to the filter before one of them stubbed it out against a root.

Czerno opened the back of the bus, and the biggest of the women pushed past him, and, easily as if it were a sack of flour, she lifted Wed’s body out of the back and carried it to the tree. She laid it in front of the tree, put it down about 10 feet from the trunk. She and her sisters unwrapped Wed’s body. He looked worse by daylight than he had by candlelight in the motel room, and after one quick glance Shadow looked away.

The women arranged his clothes, tidied his suit, then placed him at the corner of the sheet, and wound it around him once more. Then the women came over to Shadow. The biggest of them asked, - He is the one? The middle-sized one asked - The one who will mourn the all-father?

The smallest one asked - He has chosen to take the vigil? Shadow nodded. Afterward, he was unable to remember whether he’d actually heard their voices. Perhaps he’d simply understood what they’d meant from their looks and their eyes.

Mr Nancy, who’d gone back to the house to use the bathroom, came walking back to the tree. He was smoking a cigarillo. He looked thoughtful. He called, Shadow, he really doesn’t have to do this. We can find somebody more suited. He ain’t ready for this.

Shadow said simply, he’s doing it. Mr Nancy replies, he doesn’t have to, he doesn’t know what he’s lettin’ himself in for. Shadow says, then it kills him. Mr Nancy flicked his cigarillo into the meadow, angrily, and says, he said he had shit for brains, and he still has shit for brains. Can’t see when somebody’s tryin’ to give him an out?

Shadow says, he’s sorry. He didn’t say anything else. Nancy walked back to the bus. Czerno walked over to Shadow.

He didn’t look pleased, and says, he must come through this alive. Come through this safely for him, and then he tapped his knuckle gently against Shadow’s forehead and says, Bam! He squeezed Shadow’s shoulder, patted his arm, and walked back to the bus. The biggest woman, whose name seemed to be Urtha or Urder - Shadow couldn’t repeat it back to her to her satisfaction - told him, in pantomime, to take off his clothes. He asks, all of them?

The big woman shrugged. Shadow stripped to his briefs and t-shirt. The women propped the ladders against the tree. One of the ladders - it was painted by hand, with little flowers and leaves twining up the struts - they pointed out to him.

He climbed the 9 steps. Then, at their urging, he stepped onto a low branch. The middle woman tipped out the contents of the sack onto the meadow - grass. It was filled with a tangle of thin ropes, brown with age and dirt, and the woman began to sort them out into lengths, and to lay them carefully on the ground beside Wed’s body.

They climbed their own ladders now, and they started to knot the ropes, intricate and elegant knots, and they wrapped the ropes first about the tree, and then about Shadow. Unembarrassed, like midwives or nurses or those who lay out corpses, they removed his t-shirt and briefs, then they bound him, never tightly, but firmly and finally. He was amazed at how comfortable the ropes and the knots bore his weight. They ropes went under his arms, between his legs, around his waist, his ankles, his chest, binding him to the tree.

The final rope was tied, loosely, about his neck. It was initially uncomfortable, but his eight was well distributed and none of the ropes cut his flesh. His feet were 5 feet above the ground. The tree was leafless ad huge, its branches black against the gray sky, its bark a smooth silvery gray.

They took the ladders away. There was a moment of panic as he dropped a few inches, as all his weight was taken by the ropes. He made no sound. He was entirely naked by this point.

The women placed the body, wrapped in its motel-sheet shroud, at the foot of the tree, and they left him there. They left him there alone. The first day Shadow hung from the tree he explained only discomfort, which edged slowly into pain and fear, and occasionally, an emotion which was somewhere between boredom, and apathy: a gray acceptance, a waiting. He hung.

The wind was still. After several hours fleeing bursts of color started to explode across his vision in blossoms of crimson and gold, throbbing and pulsing with a life of their own. The pain in his arms and legs became by degrees, intolerable. If he relaxed them, let his body go slack and dangle, if he flopped forward, then the rope around his neck would take up the slack and the world would shimmer and swim.

So he pushed himself back against the trunk of the tree. He could feel his heart laboring in his chest, a pounding a rhythmic tattoo as it pumped the blood through his body… Emeralds and sapphires and rubies crystalized and burst in front of his eyes. His breath came in shallow gulps.

The bark of the tree was rough against his back. The chill of the afternoon on his naked skin made him shiver, made his flesh prickle and goose. Someone in the back of his head said, it’s easy, there’s a trick to it. Either he do it, or he dies. It was a wise thing to have thought, he decided.

He was pleased with it, and repeated it over and over in the back of his head, part mantra, part nursery rhyme, rattling along to the drumbeat of his heart. 4x the thought runs: it’s easy, there’s a trick to it, he’ll do it or he dies. Time passed. The chanting continued.

He could hear it. Someone was repeating the words, only stopping when Shadow’s mouth began to dry out, when his tongue turned dry and skin-like in his mouth. He pushed himself up and away from the tree with his feet, trying to support his weight in a way which would still allow him to fill his lungs. He breathed until he could hold himself up no more, and then he fell back into the bonds, and hung from the tree.

When the chattering started - an angry, laughing chattering noise - he closed his mouth, concerned it was he himself making it, but the noise continued. Shadow thought, it’s the world laughing at him, then. His head lolled to one side. Something ran down the tree-trunk beside him stopping beside his head.

It chittered loudly in his ear, one word, which sounded a lot like, ‘ratatosk‘. Shadow tried to repeat it, but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He turned, slowly, and stared into the gray-brown face and pointed ears of a squirrel. In close-up, he learned, a squirrel looks a lot less cute than it does from a distance.

The creature was rat-like, and dangerous, not sweet or charming, and its teeth looked sharp. He hoped it wouldn’t perceive him as a threat, or as a food source. He didn’t think squirrels were carnivorous… but then, so many things he hadn’t thought had turned out to be so… He slept. The pain woke him several times in the next few hours.

It pulled him from a dark dream in which dead children rose and came to him, their eyes peeling, swollen pearls, and they reproached him for failing them and it pulled him from another dream in which he was staring up at a mammoth, hairy and dark, as it lumbered toward him from the mist, but - awake for a moment, a spider edging across his face, and shook his head, dislodging or frightening it - now the mammoth was an elephant-headed man, pot-bellied, one tusk broken, and he was riding toward Shadow on the back of a huge mouse. The elephant-headed man curled his trunk towards Shadow and said, if he had invoked him before he began this journey, perhaps some of his troubles might’ve been avoided. Then the elephant took the mouse, which had, by some means Shadow couldn’t perceive, become tiny while not changing in size at all, and passed it from hand to hand to hand, fingers curling about it as the little brown creature scampered from palm to palm, and Shadow wasn’t at all surprised when the elephant-headed god finally opened all 4 of his hands to reveal them perfectly empty. He shrugged arm after arm after arm in a peculiar fluid motion, and looked at Shadow, his face unreadable.

Shadow told the elephant man, who’d seen the flickering tail vanish, it’s in the trunk. He will forget many things. He’ll give many things away. He’ll lose many things, but don’t lose this, and then the rains began, and Shadow was awake once more.

He tumbled, shivering and wet, from deep sleep to wakefulness in moments. The shivering intensified, until it scared Shadow: he was shivering more violently than he’d ever imagined possible, a series of convulsive shudders which built upon each other. He willed himself to stop shaking, but still he shivered, his teeth banging together, his limbs twitching and jerking beyond his control. There was a read pain there, too, a deep, knife-like pain which covered his body with tiny, invisible wounds, intimate and unbearable.

He opened his mouth to catch the rain as it fell, moistening his cracked lips and his dry tongue, wetting his ropes which bound him to the trunk of the tree. There was a flash of lightning so bright it felt like a blow to his eyes, transforming the world in to an intense panorama of image and after-image. Then the thunder, a crack and a boom and a rumble, and, as the thunder echoed, the rain redoubled. In the rain and the night the shivering abated; the knife-blades were put away.

Shadow no longer felt the cold, or rather, he felt only the cold, but the cold had now become part of himself, it belonged to him and he belonged to it. Shadow hung from the tree while the lightning flickered and forked across the sky, and the thunder subsided into an omnipresent rumbling, with occasional bangs and roars liked distant bombs exploding in the night, and the wind tugged at Shadow, trying to pull him from the tree, flaying his skin, cutting to the bone; at the height of the storm - and Shadow knew in his soul the real storm had truly begun the true storm, and now it was here there was nothing any of them could do but ride it out: none of them, old gods or new, spirits, powers, women or men… A strong joy rose within Shadow then, and he started laughing, as the rain washed his naked skin and the lightning flashed and thunder rumbled so loudly he could barely hear himself. He laughed and exulted.

He was alive. He had never felt like this. Ever. If he did die, he thought, if he died right now, here on the tree, it’d be worth it to have had this one, perfect, mad moment.

He shouted, at the storm, hey! Hey! It’s him! He’s here! He trapped some water between his bare shoulder and the trunk of the tree, and he twisted his head over and drank the trapped rainwater, sucking and slurping at it, and he’d rank more and he laughed, laughed with joy and delight, not madness, until he could laugh no more, until he hung there, too exhausted to move.

At the foot of the tree, on the ground, the rain had made the sheet partly transparent, and had lifted it and pushed it forward so Shadow could see Wed’s dead hand waxy and pale, and the shape of his head, and he thought of the shroud of Turin and he remembered the open girl on Jacquel’s slab in Cairo, and then, as if to spite the cold, he observed he was feeling warm and comfortable, and the bark of the tree felt soft, and he slept once more, and if he dreamed any dreams in the darkness this time he couldn’t remember them. By the following morning the pain was omnipresent. It was no longer local, not confined to the places where the ropes cut into his flesh, or where the bark scraped his skin. Now the pain was everywhere, and he was hungry, with empty pangs down in the pit of him.

His head was pounding. Sometimes he imagined he had stopped breathing, his heart had ceased to beat. Then he’d hold his breath until he could hear his heart pounding an ocean in his ears and he was forced to suck air like a diver surfacing from the depths. It seemed to him the tree reached from hell to heaven, and he’d been hanging there forever.

A brown hawk circled the tree landed on a broken branch near to him, and then took to the wing, flying west. The storm, which had abated at dawn, started to return as the day passed. Gray, roiling clouds stretched from horizon to horizon; a slow drizzle began to fall. The body at the base of the tree seemed to have become less, in its stained motel winding sheet, crumbling into itself like a sugar cake left in the rain.

Sometimes Shadow burned, sometimes he froze. When the thunder started once more he imagined he heard drums beating, kettledrums in the thunder and the thump of his heart, inside his head or outside, it didn’t matter. He perceived the pain in colors: the red of a neon bar-sign, the green of a traffic light on a wet night, the blue of an empty video screen. The squirrel dropped from the bark of the trunk onto Shadow’s shoulder, sharp claws digging into his skin.

It chattered, Ratatosk! The tip of its nose touched his lips, Ratatosk. It sprang back onto the tree. His skin was on fire with pins and needles, a pricking covering his whole body.

The sensation was intolerable. His life was laid out below him, on the motel sheet shroud, literally laid out, like the items at some Dada picnic, a surrealist tableau: he could see his mother’s puzzled stare, the American embassy in Norway, Laura’’s eyes on their wedding day… He chuckled through dry lips. Laura asks, what’s so funny, puppy?

He says, on our wedding day, she bribed the organist to change from playing the Wedding March to the theme-song from Scooby-Doo as she walked toward him down the aisle. Does she remember? She replies, of course she remembers, darling. She’d have made it too, if it wasn’t for those meddling kids.

Shadow says, he loved her so much. He could feel her lips on his, and they were warm and wet and living, not cold and dead, so he knew this was another hallucination. He asks, she isn’t here, is he? She says, no, but she’s calling her, for the last time, and she’s coming.

Breathing was harder now. The ropes cutting his flesh were an abstract concept, like free will or eternity. She says, sleep, puppy, although he thought it might’ve been his own voice he heard, and he slept. The sun was a pewter coin in a leaden sky.

Shadow was, he realized slowly, awake, and he was cold, but the part of him which understood this seemed very far away from the rest of him. Somewhere in the distance he was aware his mouth and throat were burning, painful and cracked. Sometimes, in the daylight, he’d see stars fall; other times he saw huge birds the size of delivery trucks, flying toward him. Nothing reached him, nothing touched him.

The chattering had become a scolding, ratatosk. Ratatosk. The squirrel landed, heavily, with sharp claws, on his shoulder and stared into his face. He wondered if he were hallucinating: the animal was holding a walnut-shell, like a doll’s house cup, in its front paws.

The animal pressed the shell to Shadow’s lips. Shadow felt the water, and involuntarily, he sucked it into his mouth, drinking from the tiny cup. He ran the water around his cracked lips, his dry tongue. He wet his mouth with it, and swallowed what was left, which wasn’t much.

The squirrel leapt back to the tree and ran down it. Towards the roots, and then, in seconds, or minutes, or hours, Shadow couldn’t tell which (all the clocks in his mind were broken, he thought, and their gears and cogs and springs were simply a jumble down there in the writhing grass), the squirrel returned with its walnut-shell cup, climbing carefully, and Shadow drank the water it brought to him. The muddy-iron taste of the water filled his mouth, cooled his parched throat. It eased his fatigue and his madness.

By the 3rd walnut-shell, he was no longer thirsty. He began to struggle, then pulling at the ropes, flailing his body, trying to get down to get free, to get away. He moaned. The knots were good.

The ropes were strong, and they held, and soon he exhausted himself once more. In his delirium, Shadow became the tree. It’s roots went deep into the loam of the earth, deep down into time, into the hidden springs. He felt the spring of the woman called Urd, which is to say, Past.

She was huge, a giantess, an underground mountain of a woman, and through waters she guarded were the waters of time. Other roots went to other places. Some of them were secret. Now, when he was thirsty, he pulled water from his roots, pulled them up into the body of his being.

He had a hundred arms which broke into a hundred thousand fingers, and all of his fingers reached up into the sky. The weight of the sky was heavy on his shoulders. It wasn’t the discomfort was lessened, but the pain belonged to the figure hanging from the tree, rather than to the tree itself, and Shadow in his madness was now so much more than the man on the tree. He was the tree and he was the wind rattling the bare branches of the world tree; he was the gray sky and the tumbling clouds; he was Ratatosk the squirrel running from the deepest roots to the highest branches; he was the mad-eyed hawk, who sat on a broken branch at the top of the tree surveying the world; he was the worm in the heart of the tree.

The stars wheeled, and he passed his hundred hands over the glittering stars, palming them, switching them, vanishing them… A moment of clarity, in the pain and the madness: Shadow felt himself surfacing. He knew it wouldn’t before long. The morning sun was dazzling him. He closed his eyes, wishing he could shade them.

There wasn’t long to go. He knew this, too. When he opened his eyes, Shadow noticed there was a young man in the tree with him. His skin was dark brown.

His forehead was high and his dark hair was tightly curled. He was sitting on a branch high above Shadow’s head. Shadow could see him clearly by craning his head, and the man was mad. Shadow could see this at a glance.

The madman, in a cracked voice, confided, he’s naked. He’s naked, too. Shadow croaked, he sees this. The madman looked at him, then nodded and twisted his head down and around, as if he were trying to remove a crick from his neck. Eventually he said, does he know him?

Shadow replies, no. He says, he knows him. He watched him in Cairo. He watched him after. His sister likes him. The name escaped him. Eats roadkill. Yes. He says, he’s… He is Horus. The madman nodded and says, Horus. He’s the falcon of the morning, the hawk of the afternoon. He’s the sun. As he is the sun, and he knows the true name of Ra. His mother told him.

Shadow replies, politely, this is great. The madman stared at the ground below them intently, saying nothing. Then he dropped from the tree. A hawk fell like a stone to the ground, pulled out its plummet into a swoop, beat its wings heavily and flew back to the tree, a baby rabbit in its talons.

It landed on a branch closer to Shadow. The madman asks, is he hungry? Shadow says, no, he guesses he should be, but he’s not. The madman states, he’s hungry.

He ate the rabbit rapidly, pulling it apart, sucking, tearing, rending. As he finished with them, he dropped the gnawed bones and the fur to the ground. He walked further down the branch until he was only an arm’s length from Shadow. Then he peered at Shadow unselfconsciously, inspecting him with care and caution, from his feet ot his head.

There was rabbit-blood on the man’s chin, and he wiped it off with the back of his hand. Shadow felt he had to say something and says, hey. The madman says, hey. He stood up on the branch, turned away from Shadow and let a stream of dark urine arc out into the meadow below.

It went on for a long time. When he’d finished he crouched down against the branch. Horus asked, what do they call him? Shadow says, Shadow.

The madman nodded and says, he is the shadow. He is the light. Everything which is, casts a shadow. Then he says, they will fight soon. He was watching them as they started to arrive. He was high in the sky, and none of them saw him although some of them have keen eyes, and then the madman said, he is dying. Isn’t he?, but Shadow could no longer speak. Everything was very far away. A hawk took wing, and circled slowly upward, riding the updrafts into the morning.

Moonlight. A cough shook Shadow’s frame, a racking painful cough which stabbed his chest and throat. He gagged for breath. A voice he knew called, hey, puppy.

He looked down. The moonlight burned whitely through the branches of the tree, bright as day, and there was a woman standing in the moonlight on the ground, below him, her face a pale oval. The wind rattled in the branches of the tree. She says, hi, puppy.

He tried to speak, but he coughed instead, deep in his chest, for a long time. She said helpfully, you know, this doesn’t sound good. He croaks, hello, Laura. She looked up at him with dead eyes, and she smiled.

He asked, how did she find him? She was silent for awhile in the moonlight. Then she said, he’s the nearest thing she has to life. He’s the only thing she has left, the only thing which isn’t bleak and flat and gray. She could be blindfolded and dropped into the deepest ocean and she’d know where to find him. She could be buried a hundred miles underground and she’d know where he is.

He looked down at the woman in the moonlight, and his eyes stung with tears. After awhile she says, she’ll cut him down. She spends too much time rescuing him, doesn’t she? He coughs again, then says, no, leave him. He has to do this. She looked up at him, and shook her head, saying, he’s crazy. He’s dying up there. Or he’ll be crippled, if he isn’t already.

He says, maybe, but he’s alive. After a moment she says, yes, she guesses he is. He says, she told him, in the graveyard. She replies, it seems like such a long time ago, puppy.

Then she says, she feels better, here. It doesn’t hurt as much. He know what she means?, but she’s so dry. The wind let up, and he could smell her now: a stink of rotten meat and sickness and decay, pervasive and unpleasant. She says, she lost her job. It was a night job, but they said people had complained. She told them she was sick, and they said they didn’t care. She’s so thirsty. He told her, the women, they have water. The house.

She sounded scared, saying, puppy. Shadow says, tell them… tell them he said to give her water… The white face stared up at him. She told him, she should go.

Then she hacked, and made a face, and spat a mass of something white onto the grass. It broke up when it hit the ground and wriggled away. It was almost impossible to breathe. His chest felt heavy, and his head was swaying.

He says in a breath which was almost a whisper, unsure whether or not she could hear him, stay, then says, please don’t go. He started to cough and says, stay the night. She says, she’ll stop awhile, and then like a moth to a child she says, nothing’s gonna hurt him when she’s here. He know this?

Shadow coughed once more. He closed his eyes - only for a moment, he thought, but when he opened them again the moon had set and he was alone. A crashing and a pounding in his head beyond the pain of a migraine, beyond all pain. Everything dissolved into tiny butterflies which circled him like a multicolored dust storm and then evaporated into the night.

The white sheet wrapped about the body at the base of the tree flapped noisily in the morning wind. The pounding eased. Everything slowed. There was nothing left to make him keep breathing.

His heart ceased to beat in his chest. The darkness he entered this time was deep, and lit by a single star, and it was final. The tree was gone, and the world was gone, and the morning-gray sky above him was gone. The sky was now the color of midnight.

There was a single cold star shining high above him, a blazing, twinkling light, and nothing else. He took a single step and almost tripped. Shadow looked down. There were steps cut into the rock, going down, steps so huge he could only imagine giants had cut them and descended them a long time ago.

He clambered downward, half jumping, half vaulting from step to step. His body ached, but it was the ache of lack of use, not the tortured ache of a body which has hung on a tree until it was dead. He observed, without surprise, he was now fully dressed, in jeans and a white t-shirt. He was barefoot.

He experienced a profound moment of deja vu: this was what he’d been wearing when he stood in Czerno’s apt the night Poluno had come to him and told him about the constellation called Odin’s Wain. She’d taken the moon down from the sky for him. He knew suddenly, what would happen next. Poluno would be there.

She was waiting for him at the bottom of the steps. There was no moon in the sky, but she was bathed in moonlight nonetheless: her white hair was moon-pale, and she wore the same lace-and-linen nightdress she’d worn the night in Chicago. She smiled when she saw him, and looked down, as if momentarily embarrassed and says, hello. Shadow says, hi.

She asks, how is he? He replies, he doesn’t know. He thinks this may be another strange dream on the tree. He’s been having crazy dreams since he got out of prison.

Her face was silvered by the moonlight (but no moon hung in this plum-black sky, and now, at the foot of the steps, even the single star was lost to view) and she looked both solemn and vulnerable. She said, all his questions can be answered, if this is what he wants, but once he learns his answers, he can never unlearn them. He has to understand this. He says, he got it.

Beyond her, the path forked. He’d have to decide which path to take, he knew this, but there was one thing he had to do first. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and was relieved when he felt the familiar weight of the coin at the bottom of the pocket. He eased it out, held it between finger and thumb: a 1922 Liberty dollar.

He says, this is hers. He remembered then his clothes were really at the foot of the tree. The women had placed his clothes in the canvas sack from which they’d taken the ropes, and tied the end of the sack and the biggest of the women had placed a heavy rock on it to stop it from blowing away, and so he knew this, in reality, the Liberty dollar was in a pocket in this sack, beneath the rock, but still, it was heavy in his hand, at the entrance to the underworld. She took it from his palm with slim fingers.

She says, thank you. It bought him his liberty twice, and now it’ll light his way into dark places. She closed her hand around the dollar, then she reached up and placed it in the air, as high as she could reach. She let go of it.

Shadow knew, then, this was another dream, for instead of falling, the coin floated upward until it was a foot or so above Shadow’s head. It was no longer a silver coin, though. Lady Liberty and her crown spikes were gone. The face he saw on the coin was the indeterminate face of the moon in the summer sky, the face which was only visible until one stared at it, whereupon it’d become dark seas and shapes on the moon’s cratered surface, the pattern and the face replaced by shadows of pure randomness and chance.

Shadow couldn’t decide whether he was looking at a moon the size of a dollar, a foot above his head; or whether he was looking at a moon the size of the Pacific Ocean, many thousands of miles away. Nor whether there was any difference between the 2 ideas. Perhaps it was all a matter of perspective. Perhaps it was all a matter of point of view.

He looked at the forking path ahead of him. He asks, which path should he take? Which one is safe? She says, take one, and he can’t take the other, but neither path is safe. Which way would he walk - the way of hard truths or the way of fine lies? Shadow hesitated then says, truths. He’s come too far for more lies.

She looked sad and says, there will be a price. Shadow says, he’ll pay it. What’s the price? She says, his name. His real name. He’ll have to give it to her. He asks, how?

She says, like this. She reached a perfect hand toward his head. He felt her fingers brush his skin, then he felt them penetrate his skin, his skull felt them push deep into his head. Something tickled, in his skull and all down his spine.

She pulled her hand out of his head. A flame, like a candle-flame but burning with a clear magnesium-white luminance, was flickering on the tip of her forefinger. He asks, is this his name? She closed her hand, and the light was gone.

She says, it was. She extended her hand, and pointed to the right-hand path. She says, this way. For now. Nameless Shadow walked down the right-hand path in the moonlight.

When he turned around to thank her, he saw nothing but darkness. It seemed to him he was deep under the ground, but when he looked up into the darkness above him he still saw the tiny moon. He turned a corner. If this was the afterlife, he thought, it was a lot like the House on the Rock: part diorama, part nightmare.

He was looking at himself in prison blues, in the warden’s office, as the warden told him Laura had died in a car crash. He saw the expression on his own face - he looked like a man who had been abandoned by the world. It hurt him to see it, the nakedness and the fear. He hurried on, pushed through the warden’s gray office, and found himself looking at the VCR repair store on the outskirts of Eagle Point.

3 years ago. Yes. Inside the store, you know, he was beating the living crap out of Larry Powers and B.J. West, bruising his knuckles in the process: pretty soon he’d walk out of there, carrying a brown supermarket bag filled with 20 dollar bills. The money they could never prove he’d taken: his share of the proceeds, and a little more, for they shouldn’t have tried to rip him and Laura off like this.

He was only the driver, but he’d done his part, done everything she’d asked of him… At the trial, nobody mentioned the bank robbery, although he was certain everybody wanted to. They couldn’t prove a thing as long as nobody was talking, and nobody was. The prosecutor was forced instead to stick to the bodily damage Shadow had inflicted on Powers and West.

He showed photos of the 2 men on their arrival in the local hospital. Shadow barely defended himself in court; it was easier this way. Neither Powers nor West seemed able to remember what the fight had been about but they each admitted Shadow had been their assailant. Nobody talked about the money.

Nobody even mentioned Laura, and this was all Shadow had wanted. Shadow wondered whether the path of comforting lies would’ve been a better one to walk. He walked away from this place, and followed the rock path down into what looked like a hospital room, a public hospital in Chicago, and he felt the bile rise in his throat. He stopped.

He didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to keep walking. In the hospital bed his mother was dying again, as she’d died when he was 16, and, yes, here he was, a large, clumsy 16-year-old with acne pocking his cream-and-coffee skin, sitting at her bedside, unable to look at her, reading a thick paperback book. Shadow wondered what the book was, and he walked around the hospital bed to inspect it more closely.

He stood between the bed and the chair looking from the one to the other, the big boy hunched into his chair, his nose buried in Gravity’s Rainbow, trying to escape from his mother’s death into London during the Blitz, the fictional madness of the book no escape and no excuse. His mother’s eyes were closed in a morphine peace: what she’d thought was just another, sickle-cell crisis, another bout of pain to be endured, had turned out, they’d discovered, too late, to be lymphoma. There was a lemonish-gray tinge to her skin. She was in her early 30s, but she looked much older.

Shadow wanted to shake himself, the awkward boy he once was, get him to hold her hand, talk to her, do something before she slipped away, as he knew she would, but he couldn’t touch himself and he continued to read; and so his mother died while he sat in the chair next to her, reading a fat book. After he had more or less stopped reading. One couldn’t trust fiction. What good were books, if they couldn’t protect from something like this?

Shadow walked away from the hospital room, down the winding corridor, deep into the bowels of the earth. He sees his mother first and he can’t believe how young she is, not yet 25 he guesses, before her medical discharge and they’re in their apt, another embassy rental somewhere in Northern Europe, he looks around for something to give him a clue, and he’s just a shrimp of a kid now, big pale-gray eyes and straight dark hair. They’re arguing. Shadow knows without hearing the words what they’re arguing about: it was the only ting they quarreled about, after all.

- Tell me about my father.

- He’s dead. Don’t ask about him.

- But who was he?

- Forget him. Dead and gone. And you ain’t missed nothing.

- I want to see a picture of him.

- I ain’t got a picture, she’d say, and her voice would get quiet and fierce, and he knew if he kept asking her questions she’d shout, or even hit him, and he knew he couldn’t stop asking questions, so he turned away and walked on down the tunnel. The path he followed twisted and wound and curled back on itself, and it put him in mind of snakeskins and intestines and deep, deep tree roots. There was a pool to his left, he heard the drip, drip of water into it somewhere at the back of the tunnel, the falling water barely ruffling the mirrored surface of the pool. He dropped to his knees and drank, using his hand to bring the water to his lips.

Then he walked on until he was standing in the floating disco-glitter patterns of a mirror-ball. It was like being in the exact center of the universe with all the stars and planets circling him, and he couldn’t hear anything, not the music, nor the shouted conversations over the music, and now Shadow was staring at a woman who looked just like his mother never looked in all the years he knew her, she’s little more than a child, after all… and she’s dancing. Shadow found he was completely unsurprised when he recognized the man who dances with her. He hadn’t changed much in 33 years.

She’s drunk: Shadow could see this at a glance. She’s not very drunk, but she’s unused to drink, and in a week or so she’ll take a ship to Norway. They’ve been drinking margaritas, and she has salt on her lips and salt clinging to the back of her hand. Wed isn’t wearing a suit and tie, but the pin in the shape of a silver tree he wears over the pocket of his shirt glitters and glints when the mirror-ball light catches it.

He doesn’t dance badly, they make a fine-looking couple, considering the difference in their ages. There’s a lupine grace to his movements. A slow dance. He pulls her close to him, and his paw-like hand curves around the seat of her skirt possessively, moving her closer to him.

His other hand takes her chin, pushes it upward into his face, and the 2 of them kiss, there on the floor, as the glitter-ball lights circle them into the center of the universe. Soon after they leave. She sways against him, and he leads her from the dance hall. Shadow buries his head in his hands, and doesn’t follow them unable or unwilling to witness his own conception.

The mirror lights were gone, and now the only illumination came from the tiny moon which burned high above his head. He walked on. At a bend in the path he stopped for a moment to catch his breath. He felt a hand run gently up his back, and gentle fingers ruffle the hair on the back of his head.

A smokey female voice, over his shoulder whispered, hello, hon. Turning to face her, he says, hello. She had brown hair and brown skin and her eyes were the deep golden-amber of good honey. Her pupils were vertical slits.

He asks, puzzled, does he know her? She smiles and says, intimately. She used to sleep on his bed, and her people have been keeping their eyes on him, for her. She turned to the path ahead of him, pointed to the 3 ways he could go and says, okay, one way will make him wise. One way will make him whole, and one way will kill him. Shadow replies, he’s already dead, he thinks. He died on the tree.

She made a moue, and says, there’s dead and there’s dead, and there’s dead. It’s a relative thing. Then she smiles again, saying, she could make a joke about this, you know. Something about dead relatives. Shadow replies, no, it’s ok. She says, so which way does he want to go?

He admits, he doesn’t know. She tipped her head on one side, a perfectly feline gesture. Suddenly, Shadow knew exactly who she was, and where he knew her from. He felt himself start to blush.

Bast says, if he trusts her, she can choose for him. Without hesitation, he says, he trusts her. She asks, does he want to know what it’s going to cost him? He tells her, he’s already lost his name.

She replies, names come and names go. Was it worth it? He states, yes. Maybe. It wasn’t easy. As revelations go, it was kind of personal. She responds, all revelations are personal, this is why all revelations are suspect. He says, he doesn’t understand.

She replies, no, he doesn’t. She’ll take his heart. We’ll need it later, and she reached her hand deep inside his chest, and she pulled it out with something ruby and pulsing held between her sharp fingernails. It was the color of pigeon’s blood and it was made of pure light. Rhythmically it expanded and contracted. She closed her hand, and it was gone.

She states, take the middle way. Shadow hesitates, and asks, is she really here? She tipped her head on one side, regarded him gravely, said nothing at all. He asks, what is she? What are her people?

She yawned, showing a perfect, dark-pink tongue, and says, think of us as symbols - we’re the dream humanity creates to make sense of the shadows on the cave wall. Now go on, keep moving. His body’s already growing cold. The fools are gathering on the mountain.

The clock is ticking. Shadow nodded, and walked on. The path was becoming slippery now. There was ice on the rock.

Shadow stumbled and skidded as he walked down the rock path, toward the place where it divided, scraping his knuckles on a jut of rock at chest height. He edged forward as slowly as he could. The moon above him glittered through the ice-crystals in the air: there was a ring about the moon, a moonbow, diffusing the light. It was beautiful, but it made walking harder.

The path was unreliable. He reached the place where the path divided. He looked at the first path with a feeling of recognition. It opened into a vast chamber, or set of chambers, like a dark museum.

He knew it already. He’d been there once, although for several moments he was unable to remember where or when. He could hear the long echoes of tiny noises. He could hear the noise the dust makes as it settles.

It was the place he’d dreamed of, the first night Laura had come to him in the motel, so long ago; the endless memorial hall to the gods which were forgotten, and the one’s whose existence had been lost. He took a step backward. He walked to the path on the far side, and looked ahead. There was a Disneyland quality to the corridor: black Plexiglas walls with lights set in them.

The colored lights blinked and flashed in the illusion of order, for no particular reason, like the console lights on a TV starship. He could hear something there as well a deep vibrating bass drone which Shadow could feel in the pit of his stomach. He stopped and looked around. Neither way seemed right.

Not any longer. He was done with paths. The middle way, the way the cat-woman had told him to walk, was his way. He moved toward it.

The moon above him was starting to fade: the edge of it was pinking and going into eclipse. The path was framed by a huge doorway. There were no deals to make any more, no more bargains. There was nothing to do but enter.

So Shadow walked through the doorway, in darkness. The air was warm and it smelled of wet dust, like a city street after the summer’s first rain. He wasn’t afraid. Not anymore.

Fear had died on the tree, as Shadow had died. There was no fear left, no hatred , no pain. Nothing left, but essence. Something big splashed, quietly, in the distance, and the splash echoed into the vastness.

He squinted, but could see nothing. It was too dark, and then, from the direction of the splashes, a ghost-light glimmered and the world took form: he was in a cavern, and in front of him, mirror-smooth was water. The splashing noises came closer and the light became brighter, and Shadow waited on the shore. Soon enough a low, flat boat came into sight, a flickering white lantern burning at its raised prow, another reflected in the glassy black water several feet below it.

The boat was being poled by a tall figure, and the splashing noise Shadow had heard was the sound of the pole being lifted and moved as it pushed the craft across the waters of the underground lake. Shadow called, hello there! Echoes of his words suddenly surrounded him: he could imagine a whole chorus of people were welcoming him, and calling to him, and each of them had his voice. The person poling the boat made no reply.

The boat’s pilot was tall, and very thin. He - if it was a he - wore an unadorned white robe, and the pale head which topped it was so utterly inhuman which Shadow was certain it had to be a mask of some sort: it was a birds head, small on a long neck, its beak long and high. Shadow was certain he’d seen it before, this ghostly, bird-like figure. He grasped at the memory and then, disappointed, realized he was picturing the clockwork penny-in-the-slot machine in the House on the Rock, and the pale, bird-like, half-glimpsed figure which glided out from behind the crypt for the drunkard’s soul.

Water dripped and echoed form the pole and the prow, and the ship’s wake rippled the glassy waters. The boat was made of reeds, bound and tied. The boat came close to the shore. The pilot leaned on its pole.

Its head turned slowly, until it was facing Shadow. It says, hello, without moving its long beak. The voice was male, and, like everything else in Shadow’s afterlife so far, familiar, saying, come onboard. He’ll get his feet wet, its afraid, but there’s not a thing can be done about this.

These are old boats, and if it comes in closer it could rip out the bottom. Shadow took off the shoes he hadn’t been aware he was wearing and stepped out into the water. It came halfway up his calves, and was after the initial shock of wetness, surprisingly warm. He reached the boat, and the pilot put down a hand, and pulled him aboard.

The reed boat rocked a little, and water splashed over the low sides of it, and then it steadied. The pilot poled off away from the shore. Shadow stood there and watched, his pant-legs dripping. He says to the creature at the prow, he knows it.

The boatman replies, he does indeed. The oil lamp which hung at the front of the boat burned more fitfully, and the smoke from the lamp made Shadow cough. The voice was fussy and precise, saying, he worked for it. It’s afraid we had to inter Lila Goodchild without him.

The smoke stung Shadow’s eyes. He wiped the tears away with his hand, and, through the smoke, he thought he saw a tall man, in a suit, with gold-rimmed spectacles. The smoke cleared and the boatman was once more a half-human creature with the head of a river-bird. Shadow asks, Mr Ibis?

The creature says with Mr Ibis’s voice, good to see him, Shadow. Does he know what a psychopomp is? Shadow thought he knew the word, but it’d been a long time. He shook his head.

Mr Ibis says, it’s a fancy term for an escort. We all have so many functions, so many ways of existing. In his own vision of himself, he’s a scholar who lives quietly, and pens his little tales, and dreams about a past which may or may not ever have existed, and this is true, as far as it goes, but he’s also, in one of his capacities, like so many of the people he has chosen to associate with, a psychopomp. He escorts the living to the world of the dead.

Shadow says, he thought this was the world of the dead. Ibis says, no. Not per se. It’s more of a preliminary. The boat slipped and slid across the mirror-surface of the underground pool. The bird-head of the creature at the prow stared ahead and then Mr Ibis said, without moving its beak, them people talk about the living and the dead as if they were 2 mutually exclusive categories. As if he can’t have a river which is also a road, or a song which is also a color.

Shadow says, he can’t, can he? The echoes whispered words back at him from across the pool. Mr Ibis testily says, what he has to remember, is life and death are different sides of the same coin. Like the heads and tails of a quarter. Shadow asks, and if he had a double-headed quarter?

Ibis says, he doesn’t. They only belong to fools, and gods. Shadow had a frisson (shiver), then, as they crossed the dark water. He imagined he could see the faces of children staring up at him reproachfully from beneath the water’s glassy surface: their faces were waterlogged and softened, their blind eyes clouded. There was no wind in this underground cavern to disturb the black surface of the lake.

Shadow says, so he’s dead. Ibis says, we’re on our way to the Hall of the Dead. He requested he be the one to come for him. Shadow asks, why? Ibis replies, he’s a psychopomp. He likes him. He was a hard worker. Why not?

Shadow starts, because, marshaled his thoughts and continues, because he never believed in him. Because he didn’t know much about Egyptian mythology. because he didn’t expect this. What happened to Saint Peter and the Pearly Gates?

The long-beaked white head shook from side to side, gravely. Mr Ibis says, it doesn’t matter he didn’t believe in us. We believed in him. The boat touched bottom.

Mr Ibis stepped off the side, into the pool, and told Shadow to do the same. Mr. Ibis took a line from the prow of the boat, and passed Shadow the lantern to carry. It was in the shape of a crescent moon. They walked ashore, and Mr. Ibis tied the boat to a metal ring set in the rock floor.

Then he took the lamp from Shadow and walked swiftly forward, holding the lamp high, as he walked, throwing vast shadows across the rock floor and the high rock walls. Mr Ibis asks, is he scared? Shadow replies, not really. Ibis says, well, try to cultivate the emotions of true awe and spiritual terror as we walk. They’re the appropriate feelings for the situation at hand.

Shadow wasn’t scared. He was interested, and apprehensive, but no more. He wasn’t scared of the shifting darkness, nor of being dead, nor even of the dog-headed creature the size of a grain silo who stared at them as they approached. It growled, deep in its throat, and Shadow felt his neck-hairs prickle.

It said, Shadow, now is the time of judgement. Shadow looked up at the creature, and asks, Mr. Jacquel? The hands of Anubis came down huge dark hands, and they picked Shadow up, and brought him close. The jackal head examined him with bright and glittering eyes; examined him as dispassionately as Mr. Jacquel had examined the dead girl on the slab.

Shadow knew all his faults all his failings, all his weaknesses were being taken out and weighted and measured, he was in some way, being dissected, and sliced, and tasted. We don’t always remember the things which don’t credit us. We justify them, cover them in bright lies or with the thick dust of forgetfulness. All of the things which Shadow had done in his life of which he was not proud, all the things he wished he’d done otherwise or left undone, came out at him then in a swirling storm of guilt and regret and shame and he had nowhere to hide from them.

He was as naked and as open as a corpse on a table, and dark Anubis the jackal god was his prosector and his prosecutor and his persecutor. Shadow says, please, please stop, but the examination didn’t stop. Every lie he’d ever told, every object he’d stolen, every hurt he’d inflicted on another person, all the little crimes and tiny murders which make up the day, each of these things and more were extracted and held up to the light by the jackal-headed judge of the dead. Shadow started to weep, painfully, in the palm of the dark god’s hand.

He was a tiny child again, as helpless and as powerless as he’d ever been, and then, without warning, it was over. Shadow panted, and sobbed, and snot streamed from his nose; he still felt helpless, but the hands placed him carefully, almost tenderly, down on the rock floor. Anubis asked in a growl, who has his heart? A woman’s voice purred, she does.

Shadow looked up. Bast was standing there beside the thing which was no longer Mr Ibis and she held Shadow’s heart in her right hand. It lit her face with a ruby light. Thoth the ibis-headed god, says, give it to him, and he took the heart in his hands, which weren’t human hands, and he glided forward.

Anubis placed a pair of golden scales in front of him. Shadow asked in a whisper to Bast, so is this where we find out what he gets? Heaven? Hell? Purgatory? She states, if the feather balances, he gets to choose his own destination. Shadow asks, and if not?

She shrugged, as if the subject made her uncomfortable. Then she says, then we feed his heart and soul to Ammet, the Eater of Souls… He says, maybe, maybe he can get some kind of a happy ending. She tells him, not only are there no happy endings, there aren’t even endings.

On one of the pans of the scales, carefully, reverently, Anubis placed a feather. Anubis put Shadow’s heart on the other pan of the scales. Something moved in the shadows under the scale, something it made Shadow uncomfortable to examine too closely. It was a heavy feather, but Shadow had a heavy heart, and the scales tipped and swung worryingly, but they balanced, in the end, and the creature in the shadows skulked away, unsatisfied.

Bast wistfully says, so that’s that. Just another skull for the pile. It’s a pity. She’d hoped he’d do some good, in the current troubles. It’s like watching a slow-motion car crash and being powerless to prevent it.

Shadow asks, she won’t be there? She shook her head and says, she doesn’t like other people picking her battles for her. There was silence then in the vasty hall of death where it echoed of water and the dark. Shadow asks, so now he gets to choose where he goes next?

Thoth says, choose or we can choose for him. Shadow says, no. It’s ok. It’s his choice. Anubis roared, well? Shadow says, he wants to rest now. This is what he wants. He wants nothing. No heaven, no hell, no anything. Just let it end.

Thoth asks, he’s certain? Shadow replies, yes. Mr Jacquel opened the last door for Shadow, and behind this door there was nothing. Not darkness. Not even oblivion. Only nothing. Shadow accepted it, completely and without reservation, and he walked through the door into nothing with a strange fierce joy.

The most important place in the southeastern U.S. is advertised on hundred of aging born-roofs across GA and TN and up into KY. On a winding road through a forest a driver will pass a rotting red barn and see, painted on its roof
SEE ROCK CITY
THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD and on the roof of a tumbledown milking shed nearby painted in white block letters, SEE SEVEN STATES FROM ROCK CITY THE WORLD’S WONDER. The driver is led by this to believe Rock City is surely just around the nearest corner instead of being a day’s drive away, on Lookout Mountain a hair over the state line in GA, just, southwest of Chattanooga, TN. Lookout Mountain isn’t much of a mountain.

It resembles an impossibly high and commanding hill, brown from a distance, green with trees and houses from up close. The Chickamauga, a branch of the Cherokee, lived there when the white men came; they called the mountain Chattotonoogee, which has been translated as the mountain which rises to a point. In the 1830s Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act forced them all from their land - all the Choctaw and Chickamauga and Cherokee and Chickasaw - and U.S. troops forced every one of them they could find and catch to walk over a thousand miles to the new Indian Territories in what would one day be ok, down the Trail of Tears: a cheerful gesture of casual genocide. Thousands of men, women, and children died on the way.

When one’s won, one’s won, and nobody can argue with this. For whoever controlled Lookout Mountain controlled the land, this was the legend. It was a sacred site, after all, and it was a high place. In the Civil War, the War Between the States, there was a battle there: the Battle Above the Clouds, this was the first day’s fighting, and then the Union forces did the impossible, and without orders, swept up Missionary Ridge and took it. The troops of General Grant won the day, and the North took Lookout Mountain and the North took the war.

There are tunnels and caves, some very old, beneath Lookout Mountain. For the most part they’re blocked off now, although a local businessman excavated an underground waterfall, which he called Ruby Falls. It can be reached by elevator. It’s a tourist attraction, although the biggest tourist attraction of all is at the top of Lookout Mountain.

This is Rock City. Rock City starts as an ornamental garden on a mountainside: its visitors walk a path which takes them through rocks, over rocks, between rocks. They throw corn into a deer enclosure, cross a hanging bridge and peer out through a-quarter-a-throw binoculars at a view which promises them 7 states on the rare sunny days when the air is perfectly clear, and from there, like a drop into some strange hell, the path takes the visitors, millions upon millions of them every year, down into caverns, where they stare at black-lit dolls arranged into nursery-rhyme and fairy-tale dioramas. When they leave, they leave bemused, uncertain of why they came, of what they’ve seen of whether they had a good time or not.

They came to Lookout Mountain from all across the U.S. They weren’t tourists. They came by car and they came by plane and by bus and by railroad and on foot. Some of them flew - they flew low, and they flew only in the dark of the night, but still, they flew.

Several of them traveled their own ways beneath the earth. Many of them hitchhiked, cadging rides from nervous motorists or from truck drivers. Those who had cars or trucks would see the one’s who hadn’t walking beside the roads or at rest stations and in diners on the way, and, recognizing them for what they were, would offer them rides. They arrived dust-stained and weary at the foot of Lookout Mountain.

Looking up to the heights of the tree-covered slope they could see, or imagine they could see, the paths and gardens and streams of Rock City. They started arriving early in the morning. A 2nd wave of them arrived at dusk, and for several days they simply kept coming. A battered U-Haul truck pulled up, disgorging several travel-weary vila and rusalka, their make-up smudged, runs in their stockings, their expressions heavy-lidded and tired.

In a clump of trees at the bottom of the hill, an elderly wampyr offered a Marlboro to a huge naked ape-like creature covered with a tangle of orange fur. It accepted graciously, and they smoked in silence, side by side. A Toyota Previa pulled up by the side of the road, and 7 Chinese men and women got out of it. They looked, above all, clean, and they wore the kind of dark suits which, in some countries, are worn by minor government officials.

One of them carried a clipboard, and he checked the inventory as they unloaded large golf-bags form the back of the car: the bags contained ornate swords with lacquer handles, and carved sticks, and mirrors. The weapons were distributed, checked off signed for. A once-famous comedian, believed to have died in the 1920s, climbed out of his rusting car, and proceeded to remove his clothing: his legs were goat-legs, and his tail was short and goatish. 4 Mexicans arrived, all smiles, their hair black and very shiny: they passed among themselves a beer bottle which they kept out of sight in a brown paper bag, its contents a bitter mixture of powdered chocolate, liquor, and blood.

A small, dark-bearded man with a dusty black derby on his head, curling payess at his temples, and a ragged fringed prayer shawl came to them walking across the fields. He was several feet in front of his companion who was twice his height, and was the blank gray color of good Polish clay: the word inscribed on his forehead meant truth. They kept coming. A cab drew up and several rakshasas, demons of the Indian subcontinent, climbed out and milled around, staring at the people at the bottom of the hill without speaking, until they found Mama-ji, her eyes closed, her lips moving in prayer.

She was the only thing here which was familiar to them, but still, they hesitated to approach her remembering old battles. Her hands rubbed the necklace of skulls about her neck. Her brown skin became slowly black, the glassy black of jet, of obsidian: her lips curled and her long white teeth were very sharp. She opened all her eyes, and beckoned the rakshasas to her, and greeted them as she’d have greeted her own children.

The storms of the last few days, to the north and east, had done nothing to ease the feeling of pressure and discomfort in the air. Local weather forecasters had begun to warn of cells which might spawn tornados of high-pressure areas which didn’t move. It was warm by day there, but the nights were cold. They clumped together in informal companies, banding together sometimes by nationality, by race, by temperament, even by species.

They looked apprehensive. They looked tired. Some of them were talking. There was laughter, on occasion, but it was muted and sporadic.

6-packs of beer were handed around. Several local men and women came walking over the meadows, their bodies moving in unfamiliar ways: their voices, when they spoke, were the voices of the loa who rode them: a tall, black man spoke in the voice Papa Legba who opens the gates; while Baron Samedi, the voudon lord of death had taken over the body of a teenage Goth girl from Chattanooga, possibly because she possessed her own black silk top hat, which sat on her dark hair at a jaunty angle. She spoke in the baron’s own deep voice, smoked a cigar of enormous size and commanded 3 of the Gédé, the Loa of the dead. The Gédé inhabited the bodies of 3 middle-aged brothers.

They carried shotguns and told continual jokes of such astounding filthiness which only they were willing to laugh at them, which they did, raucously and repeatedly. Two ageless Chickamauga women, in oil-stained blue jeans and battered leather jackets, walked around, watching the people and the preparations for battle. Sometimes they pointed and laughed, they didn’t intend to take part in the coming conflict. The moon swelled and rose in the east, a day away from full.

It seemed half as big as the sky as it rose, a deep reddish-orange, immediately above the hills. As it crossed the sky it seemed to shrink and pale until it hung high in the sky like a lantern. There were so many of them waiting there, in the moonlight, at the foot of Lookout Mountain. Laura was thirsty.

Sometimes living people burned steadily in her mind like candles and sometimes they flamed like torches. It made them easy to avoid, and it made them easy, on occasion, to find. Shadow had burned so strongly, with his own light up on this tree. She’d chided him once, on this day, when they’d walked and held hands, for not being alive.

She’d hoped, perhaps, to see a spark of raw emotion, something which would show her the man shed once been married to was a real man, a live one, and she’d seen nothing at all. She remembered walking beside him, wishing he could understand what she was trying to say. Now, dying on the tree, Shadow was utterly alive. She’d watched him as the life had faded, and he’d been focused and real, and he’d asked her to stay with him, to stay the whole night.

He’d forgiven her… perhaps he’d forgiven her. It didn’t matter. He’d changed; this was all she knew. Shadow had told her to go to the farmhouse, they’d give her water to drink there.

There were no lights burning in the farm building, and she could feel nobody at home, but he’d told her they’d care for her. She pushed against the door of the farmhouse and it opened, rusty hinges protesting the whole while. Something moved in her left lung, something which pushed and squirmed and made her cough. She found herself in a narrow hallway, her way almost blocked by a tall and dusty piano.

The inside building smelled of old damp. She squeezed past the piano, pushed open a door and found herself in a dilapidated drawing room, filled with ramshackle furniture. An oil lamp burned on the mantelpiece. There was a coal fire burning in the fireplace beneath it, although she’d neither seen nor smelled smoke outside the house.

The coal fire did nothing to lift the chill she felt in this room, although, Laura was willing to concede, which might not be the fault of the room. Death hurt Laura, although the hurt consisted mostly of absences, of things which weren’t there: a parching thirst which drained every cell of her, a cold in her bones which no heat could lift. Sometimes she’d catch herself wondering whether the crisp and crackling flames of a pyre would warm her, or the soft brown blanket of the earth; whether the cold sea would quench her thirst…The room she realized, wasn’t empty.

3 women sat on an elderly couch, as if they’d come as a matched set in some outlandish artistic exhibition. The couch was upholstered in threadbare velvet, a faded brown, which might, once, a hundred years ago, have been a bright canary yellow. The women were dressed in identical fog-gray skirts, and sweater. Their eyes were too deeply set, their skin the white of fresh bone.

The one on the left of the sofa was a giantess, or almost, the one on the right was little more than a dwarf and, between them, was a woman Laura was certain would be her own height. They followed her with their eyes as she entered the room, and they said nothing. Laura hadn’t known they’d be there. Something wriggled and fell in her nasal cavity.

Laura fumbled in her sleeve for a tissue, and she blew her nose into it. She crumpled the tissue and flung it and its contents onto the coals of the fire, watched, it crumple and blacken and become orange lace. She watched the maggots shrivel and brown and burn. This done, she turned back to the women on the couch.

They hadn’t moved since she’d entered, not a muscle, not a hair. They stared at her. She asks, hello. Is this their farm? The largest of the women nodded.

Her hands were very red, and her expression was impassive. She says, Shadow - this is the guy hanging on the tree. He’s her husband. He said she should tell them he wants her to give her water. Something large shifted in her bowels. It squirmed, and then was still.

The smallest woman nodded. She clambered off the couch. Her feet hadn’t previously touched the floor. She scurried from the room.

Laura could hear doors opening and closing, through the farmhouse. Then, from outside, she could hear a series of loud creaks. Each was followed by a splash of water. Soon enough, the small woman returned.

She was carrying a brown earthenware jug of water. She put it down, carefully, on the table, and retreated to the couch. She pulled herself up, with a wriggle and a shiver, and was seated beside her sisters once again. Laura says, thank you, and walks over to the table, looked around for a cup or a glass, but there was nothing like this to be seen.

She picked up the jug. It was heavier than it looked. The water in it was perfectly clear. She raised the jug to her lips and began to drink.

The water was colder than she’d ever imagined liquid water could be. It froze her tongue and her teeth and her gullet. Still, she drank, unable to stop drinking, feeling the water freezing its way into her stomach, her bowels, her heart, her veins. The water flowed into her.

It was like drinking liquid ice. She realized the jug was empty and, surprised, she put it down on the table. The women were observing her dispassionately. Since her death, Laura hadn’t though in metaphors: things were, or they weren’t but now as she looked at the women on the sofa, she found herself thinking of juries, of course scientists observing a laboratory animal.

She shook, suddenly and convulsively. She reached out a hand to the table to steady herself, but the table was slipping and lurching, and it almost avoided her grasp. As she put her hand on the table she started to vomit. She brought up bile and formalin, centipedes, and maggots, and then she felt herself starting to void, and to piss: stuff was being pushed violently, wetly, from her body.

She’d have screamed if she could; but then the dusty floorboard came up to meet her so fast and so hard, had she been breathing, they’d have knocked the breath from her body. Time rushed over he and into her, swirling like a dust-devil. A thousand memories began to play at once; and she was lost in a department store the week before Xmas and her father was nowhere to be seen; and now she was sitting in the bar at Chi-Chi’s, ordering a strawberry daiquiri and checking out her blind date, the big, grave man-child, and wondering how he kissed; and she was in the car as, sickeningly, it rolled and jolted, and Robbie was screaming at her until the metal post finally stopped the car, but not its contents, from moving… The water of life.

Not quite. It feeds the roots of the world tree, though, and there’s no other water like it. When Laura woke in the empty farmhouse room, she was shivering, and her breath actually steamed in the morning air. There was a scrape on the book of her hand, and a wet smear on the scrape, the red-orange of fresh blood, and she knew where she had to go.

She had drunk from the water of time, which comes from the spring of fate. She could see the mountain in her mind. She licked the blood from the back of her hand, marveling at the film of saliva, and she started to walk. It was a wet March day, and it was unseasonably cold, and the storms of the previous few days had lashed their way across the southern states, which meant there were very few real tourists at Rick City on Lookout Mountain.

The Xmas lights had been taken down, the summer visitors were yet to start arriving. Still, there were a number of people there. There was even a tour bus which drew up this morning, releasing a dozen men and women with perfect tans and gleaming, reassuring smiles. They looked like news anchors, and one could almost imagine there was a phosphor-dot quality to them: they seemed to blur gently as they moved.

A black Humvee was parked in the front lot of Rock City near to Rocky the animatronic gnome. The TV people walked intently through Rock City, stationing themselves near the balancing rock, where they talked to each other in pleasant, reasonable voices. They weren’t the only visitors. If one had walked the path’s of Rock City this day, one might have noticed people who looked like movie starts, and people who looked like aliens and a number of people who looked must of all like the idea of a person and nothing like the reality.

One might have seen them, but most likely one would never have noticed them at all. They came to Rock City in long limos and in small sports cars and in oversized SUVs. Many of them wore the sunglasses of those who habitually wear sunglasses indoors and out, and don’t willingly or comfortably remove them. There were suntans and suits and shades and smiles and scowls.

They came in all sizes and shapes, all ages and styles. All they had in common was a look, a very specific look. It said, they know them; or perhaps they ought to know them. An instant familiarity which was also a distance, a look, or an attitude - the confidence which the world existed for them, and it welcomed them, and they were adored.

The fat kid moved among them with the shuffling walk of one who, despite having no social skills, has still become successful beyond his dreams. His black coat flapped in the wind. Something which stood beside the soft drink stand in Mother Goose Court coughed to attract his attention. It was massive, and scalpel - blades jutted from its face and its fingers.

Its face was cancerous. It told him in a glutinous voice, it’ll be a mighty battle. The fat kid replies, it’s not going to be a battle, all were facing here is a fucking paradigm shift. It’s a shakedown.

Modalities like battle are so fucking Lao Tzu. The cancerous thing blinked at him, and all it said in reply is waiting. The fat kid says, whatever, he’s looking for Mr. World. It seen him?

The thing scratched itself with a scalpel-blade, a tumorous lower lip pushed out in concentration. Then it nodded and said, over there. The fat kid walked away, without a thank you, in the direction indicated. The cancerous thing waited, saying nothing, until the kid was out of sight.

The cancerous thing says to a woman whose face was smudged with phosphor-dots, it will be a battle. She nodded, and leaned closer to it and asks in a sympathetic voice, so how does this made it feel? It blinked, and then it started to tell her. Town’s Ford Explorer had a global positioning system, a little silver box which listened to the satellites and whispered back to the car its location, but he still got lost once he got south of Blacksburg and onto the country roads: the roads he drove seemed to bear little relationship to the tangle of lines on the map on the screen.

Eventually he stopped the car in a country lane, wound down the window and asked a fat, white woman being pulled by a wolfhound on its early morning walk for directions to Ashtree farm. She nodded, and pointed and said something to him. He couldn’t understand what she’d said, but he said thanks a million and wound up the window and drove off in the general direction she’d indicated. He kept going to another 40 minutes, down country road after country road, each promising, none of them the road he sought.

Town started to chew his lower lip. He says, aloud, relishing the movie star world-weariness of the line, he’s too old for this shit. He was pushing 50. Most of his working life had been spent in a branch of government which went only by its initials, and whether or not he’d left his government job a dozen years ago for employment by the private sector was a matter of opinion: some days he thought one way, some days another.

Anyway, it was only when one got down to the joes on the street anyone seemed to assume there was a difference. He was on the verge of giving up on the farm when he drove up a hill and saw the sign, hand painted, on the gate. It said simply, as he’d been told it would, ASH. He pulled up the Ford Explorer, climbed out and untwisted the wire which held the gate closed.

He got back in the car and drove through. It was liking a frog, he thought. One put the frog in the water and then one turns on the heat, and by the time the frog notices there’s anything wrong, it’s already been cooked. The world in which he worked was all too weird.

There was no solid ground beneath his feet; the water in the pot was bubbling fiercely. When he’d been transferred half the Agency it’d all seemed so simple. Now it was all so - not complex he decided; merely bizarre. He’d been sitting in Mr. World’s office at 2 this morning, and he’d been told what he was to do.

Mr. World handing him the knife in it’s dark leather sheath, asks, he got it?, and continues, cut him a stick. It doesn’t have to be longer than a couple of feet. He says, affirmative, then asks, why does he have to do this, sir? Mr. World says flatly, because he told him to. Find the tree. Do the job. Meet him down in Chattanooga. Don’t waste any time. Town asks, and what about the asshole?

World replies, Shadow? If he sees him, just avoid him. Don’t touch him. Don’t even mess with him. He doesn’t want him turning him into a martyr. There’s no room for martyrs in the current game-plan. He smiled then, his scarred smile. Mr. World was easily amused. Mr. Town had noticed this on several occasions.

It’d amused him to play chauffeur, in KS, after all. Town says, look - World interrupts, no martyrs, Town, and Town had nodded, and taken the knife in its sheath, and pushed the rage which welled up inside him down deep and away. Mr Town’s hatred of Shadow had become a part of him. As he was falling asleep he’d see Shadow’s solemn face, see this smile which wasn’t a smile, the way Shadow had of smiling without smiling which made Town want to sink his fist into the man’s gut, and even as he fell asleep he could feel his jaws squeeze together, his temples tense, his gullet burn.

He drove the Ford Explorer across the meadow, past an abandoned farmhouse. He crested a ridge and saw the tree. He parked the car a little way past it, and turned off the engine. The clock on the dashboard said it was 6:38 am.

He left the keys in the car, and walked toward the tree. The tree was large; it seemed to exist on its own sense of scale. Town couldn’t have said if it was 15 feet high or 200. Its bark was the gray of a fine silk scarf.

There was a naked man tied to the trunk a little way above the ground by a web work of ropes, and there was something wrapped in a sheet at the foot of the tree. Town realized what it was as he passed it. He pushed at the sheet with his foot. Wed’s ruined half-a-face stared out at him.

He’d have expected it to be alive with maggots and flies, but it was untouched by insects. It didn’t even smell bad. It looked just as it had when he’d taken it to the motel. Town reached the tree.

He walked a little way around the thick trunk, away from the sightless eyes of the farmhouse, then he unzipped his fly, and pissed against the trunk of the tree. He did up his fly. He walked back over to the house, found a wooden extension ladder, carried it back to the tree. He leaned it carefully against the trunk.

Then he climbed up it. Shadow hung limply, from the ropes which tied him to the tree. Town wondered if the man were still alive: his chest didn’t rise or fall. Dead or almost dead, it didn’t matter.

Town said aloud, hello asshole. Shadow didn’t move. Town reached the top of the ladder, and he pulled out the knife. He found a small branch which seemed to meet Mr. World’s specifications, and hacked at the base of it with the knife-blade, cutting it half-through then breaking it off with his hand.

It was about 30 inches long. He put the knife back in its sheath. Then he started to climb back down the ladder. When he was opposite Shadow, he paused and says, god, he hates him.

He wished he could’ve just taken out his gun and shoot him and he knew he couldn’t, and then he jabbed the stick in the air toward the hanging man, in a stabbing motion. It was an instinctive gesture, containing all the frustration and rage inside Town. He imagined he was holding a spear and twisting it into Shadow’s guts. He says aloud, come on, time to get moving.

Then he thought, first sign of madness. Talking to himself. He climbed down a few more steps, then jumped the rest of the way to the ground. He looked at the stick he was holding, and he felt like a small boy, holding his stick as a sword or a spear. He thinks, he could’ve cut a stick from any tree. It didn’t have to be this tree. Who the fuck would’ve known?

He carried the ladder back to the farmhouse. From the corner of his eye he thought he saw something move, and he looked in through the window, into the dark room filled with broken furniture, with the plaster peeling from the walls, and for a moment, in a half-dream, he imagined he saw 3 women sitting in the dark parlor. One of them was knitting. One of them was staring directly at him.

One of them appeared to be asleep. The woman who was staring at him began to smile, a huge smile which seemed to split her face lengthwise, a smile which crossed from ear to ear. Then she raised a finger and touched it to her neck, and ran it gently from one side of her neck to the other. This is what he thought he saw, all in a moment, in this empty room, which contained, he saw at a glance, nothing more than old rotting furniture and fly-spotted prints and dry rot.

There was nobody there at all. He rubbed his eyes. Town walked back to the brown Ford Explorer and climbed in. He tossed the stick onto the white leather of the passenger seat.

He turned the key in the ignition. The dashboard clock said 6:37am. Town frowned, and checked his wristwatch which blinked it was 13:58. He thinks, great, he was wither up on this tree, for 8 hours, or 4 minus a minute.

This was what he thought, but what he believed was both timepieces had, coincidentally, started to misbehave. On the tree, Shadow’s body started to bleed. The wound was in his side. The blood which came from it was slow and thick and molasses-black.

He didn’t move. If he was sleeping, he didn’t wake. Clouds covered the top of Lookout Mountain. Easter sat some distance away from the crowd at the bottom of the mountain, watching the dawn over the hills to the east.

She had a chain of blue forget-me-nots tattooed around her left wrist, and she rubbed them, absently, with her right thumb. Another night had come and gone, and nothing. The folk were still coming, by ones and twos. The last night had brought several creature’s from the southwest, including 2 young boys each the size of an apple tree, and something which she’d only glimpsed, but which had looked like a disembodied head the size of a VW Bug.

They’d disappeared into the trees at the bast of the mtn. Nobody bothered them. Nobody from the outside world even seemed to have noticed they were there: she imagined the tourists at Rock City staring down at them through their insert-a-quarter binoculars, staring straight at a ramshackle encampment of things and people at the foot of the mtn, and seeing nothing but tees and bushes and rocks. She could smell the smoke from a cooking fire, a smell of burning bacon on the chilly dawn wind.

Someone at the far end of the encampment began to play the harmonica, which made her, involuntarily, smile and shiver. She had a paperback book in her backpack, and she waited for the sky to become light enough for her to read. There were 2 dots in the sky, immediately below the clouds: a small one and a larger one. A spatter of rain brushed her face in the morning wind.

A barefoot girl came out from the encampment, walking toward her. She stopped beside a tree, hitched up her skirts, and squatted. When she’d finished, Easter hailed her. The girl walked over, she says, good morning, lady. The battle will start soon now.

The tip of her pink tongue touched her scarlet lips. She had a black crow’s wing tied with leather onto her shoulder, a crow’s foot on a chain around her neck. Her arms were blue-tattooed with lines and patterns and intricate knots. Easter asks, how does she know?

The girl grinned and replied, she’s Macha, of the Morrigan. When war comes, she can smell it in the air. She’s a war goddess, and she says, blood shall be spilled this day. Easter says, oh. Well, there you go. She was watching the smaller dot in the sky as it tumbled down toward them, dropping like a rock. Macha says, and we shall fight them, and we shall kill them, every one, and we shall take their heads as trophies, and the crows shall have their eyes and their corpses.

The dot had become a bird, its wings outstretched, riding the gusty morning winds above them. Easter cocked her head on one side, and asks, is this some hidden war goddess knowledge? The whole ‘who’s to win‘, thing? Who gets whose head? Macha replies, no. She can smell the battle, but this is all, but we’ll win. Won’t we? We have to. She saw what they did to the all-father. It’s them or us. Easter says, yeah. She supposes it is.

The girl smiled again, in the half-light, and made her way back to the camp. Easter put her hand down and touched a green shoot which stabbed up from the earth like a knife blade. As she touched it, it grew, and opened, and twisted, and changed, until she was resting her hand on a green tulip head. When the sun was high the flower would open.

Easter looked up at the hawk, and asks, can she help him? The hawk circled about 15 feet above Easter’s head, slowly, then it glided down to her, and landed on the ground nearby. It looked up at her with mad eyes. She says, hello, cutie. Now, what does he really look like, eh?

The hawk hopped toward her, uncertainly, and then it was no longer a hawk, but a young man. He looked at her, and then looked down at the grass. He asks, her? His glance went everywhere, to the grass, to the sky, to the bushes.

Not to her. She replies, her. What about her? He says, her. He stopped. He seemed to be trying to muster his thoughts, strange expressions flitted and swam across his face.

He spent too long a bird, she thought. He’s forgotten how to be a man. She waited patiently. Eventually, he says, will she come with him?

She says, maybe. Where does he want her to go? He replies, the man on the tree. He needs her. A ghost hurt, in his side. The blood came, then it stopped. He thinks he’s dead. Easter replies, there’s a war on. She can’t just go running away. The naked man said nothing, just moved from one foot to another as if he were uncertain of his weight, as if he were used to resting on the air or on a swaying branch, not on the solid and unchanging earth.

Then he said, if he’s gone forever, it’s all over. Easter starts, but the battle - he interrupts, if he’s lost, it will not matter who wins. He looked like he needed a blanket, and a cup of sweet coffee, and someone to take him somewhere he could shiver and babble until he got his mind back. He held his arms stiffly against his sides.

Easter asks, where is this? Nearby? He stared at the tulip plant, and shook his head, and says, way away. She replies, well, she’s needed here, and she can’t just leave. How does he expect her to get there? She can’t fly, like him, you know? Horus says, no. She can’t.

Then he looked up, gravely, and pointed to the other dot which circled them, as it dropped from the darkening clouds, growing in size and says, he can. Another several hours pointless driving, and by now Town hated the GPS almost as much as he hated Shadow. There was no passion in the hate though. He’d thought finding his way to the farm, to the great silver ash tree, had been hard; finding his way away from the farm was much harder.

It didn’t seem to matter which road he took, which direction he drove down the narrow country lanes - the twisting VA back roads which must’ve begun, he was sure, as deer trails and cow paths - eventually he’d find himself passing the farm once more, and the hand-painted sign, ASH. This was crazy, wasn’t it? He simply had to retrace his way, take a left turn for every right he’d taken on his way here, a right turn for every left. Only this was what he’d done last time, and now here he was, back at the farm once more.

There were heavy storm clouds coming in, it was getting dark fast, it felt like night, not morning, and he had a long drive ahead of him: he’d never get to Chattanooga before afternoon at this rate. His cell phone gave him only a No Service message. The fold out map in the car’s glove compartment showed the main roads, all the interstates and the real hwys, but as far as it was concerned nothing else existed. Nor was there anyone around which he could ask.

The houses were set back from the roads; there were no welcoming lights. Now the fuel gauge was nudging Empty. He heard a rumble of distant thunder, and single drop of rain splashed heavily onto his windshield. So when Town saw the woman walking along the side of the road, he found himself smiling, involuntarily and said aloud, thank God, and he drew up beside her.

He thumbed down her window and says, Ma’am? He’s sorry. He’s kind of lost. Can she tell him how to get to Hwy 81 from here? She looked at him through the open passenger-side window and says, you know, she doesn’t think she can explain it, but she can show him if he likes. She was pale and her wet hair was long and dark. Town says, climb in.

He didn’t even hesitate, and says, first thing, we need to buy some gas. She says, thanks, she needed a ride. She got in. Her eyes were astonishingly blue, and says, puzzled, there’s a stick here, on the seat.

He says, just throw it in the back. Where’s she heading? Lady, if she can get him to a gas station, and back to a freeway, he’ll take her all the way to her own front door. She says, thank you, but she thinks she’s going further than he is. If he can get her to the freeway, this will be fine. Maybe a trucker will give her a ride, and she smiled, a crooked, determined smile. It was the smile which did it.

He says, ma’am. He can give her a finer ride than any trucker. He could smell her perfume. It was heady and heavy, a cloying scent, like magnolias or lilacs, but he didn’t mind. She says, she’s going to GA. It’s a long way.

He replies, he’s going to Chattanooga. He’ll take her as far as he can. She says, mmm. What’s his name? Mr Town says, they call him Mack. When he was talking to women in bars, he’d sometimes follow this up with, and the one’s which knew him really well call him Big Mack.

This could wait. They’d have many hours in each other’s company to get to knew each other, after all. He asks, what’s hers? She tells him, Laura.

He replies, well, Laura. He’s sure we’re going to be great friends. The fat kid found Mr. World in the Rainbow Room - a walled section of the path, its window glass covered in clear plastic sheets of green and red and yellow film. He was walking impatiently from window to window. His hair was reddish-orange and close-cropped to his skull.

He wore a Burberry raincoat. The fat kid coughed. Mr. World looked up. The fat kid asks, excuse him? Mr World?

World responds, yes? Is everything on schedule? The fat kid’s mouth was dry. He licked his lips, and says, he’s set up everything: He doesn’t have confirmation on the choppers. World says, the copters will be here when we need them.

The fat kid replies, good. Good. He stood there, not saying anything, not going away. There was a bruise on his forehead. After a while Mr. World says, is there anything else he can do for him?

A pause. The boy swallowed and nodded, saying, something else. Yes. World asks, would he feel more comfortable discussing it in private? The boy nodded again.

Mr. World walked the kid back to his operation center: a damp cave containing a diorama of drunken pixies making moonshine with a still. A sign outside warned tourists away during renovations. The 2 men sat down on plastic chairs. Mr. World asks, how can he help him?

The fat kid replies, yes. Okay. Right, 2 things, ok. One. What are we waiting for? And 2. Two is harder. Look. We have the guns. Right. We have the firepower. They have fucking swords and knives and fucking hammers and stone axes, and like, tire irons. We have fucking smart bombs. The other man points out, which we will not be using. The fat kid replies, he knows this. He said this already. He knows this, and this is doable, but. Look, ever since he did the job on this bitch in L.A. He’s been… He stopped, made a face, seemed unwilling to go on. World asks, he’s been troubled?

The fat kid agrees, yes. Good word. Troubled. Yes. Like a home for troubled teens. Funny. Yes. World asks, and what exactly is troubling him? The fat kid replies, well, we fight, we win. World asks, and this is a source of trouble? He finds it a matter of triumph and delight, himself.

The fat kid says, but. They’ll die out anyway. They’re passenger pigeons and thylacines. Yes? Who cares? This way, it’s going to be a bloodbath. If we just wait them out, we get the whole thing. Mr. World nodded and says, ah. He was following. This was good. The fat kid says, look, he’s not the only one who feels this way. He’s checked with the crew at Radio Modern, and they’re all for settling this peacefully; and the Intangibles are pretty much in favor of letting market forces take care of it. He’s being. He knows. The voice of reason here. World replies, he is indeed. Unfortunately, there’s info he doesn’t have.

The smile which followed was twisted and scarred. The boy blinked and said, Mr. World? What happened to his lips? World sighs, and says, the truth of the matter is this somebody sewed them together. A long time ago. The fat kid says, whoa. Serious omerta shit.

World replies, yes. He want to know what we’re waiting for? Why we didn’t strike last night? The fat kid nodded. He was sweating, but it was a cold sweat. World continues, we didn’t strike yet, because he’s waiting for a stick.

The fat kid asks, a stick? World replies, this is right. A stick, and does he know what he’s going to do with the stick? A head shake and he says, ok. He’ll bite. What? Mr World says soberly, he could tell him, but then he’d have to kill him.

He winked, and the tension in the room evaporated. The fat kid began to giggle, a low, snuffling laugh in the back of his throat and in his nose. Ok, he says. Hee. Hee. Ok. Hee. Got it. Message received on Planet Technical. Loud and clear. Ixnay on the estionsquay. Mr World shook his head.

He rested a hand on the fat kid’s shoulder, and says, hey, he really want to know? The fat kid says, sure. World replies, well, seeing we’re friends here’s the answer: he’s going to take the stick, and he’s going to throw it over the armies as they come together. As he throws it, it’ll become a spear, and then, as the spear arcs over the battle, he’s going to shout, he dedicates this battle to Odin. The fat kid asks, huh? Why?

Mr. World says, power. He scratched his chin and continues, and food. A combination of the two. You see, the outcome of the battle is unimportant. What matters is the chaos, and the slaughter. The fat kid says, he doesn’t get it. Mr. World says, let him show him. It’ll be just like this. Watch!

He took the wooden-bladed hunter’s knife from the pocket of his Burberry and, in one fluid movement, he slipped the blade of it into the soft flesh beneath the fat kid’s chin, and pushed hard upward, toward the brain and says as the knife sank in, he dedicates this death to Odin. There was a leakage onto his hand of something which wasn’t actually blood, and a sputtering sparking noise behind the fat kid’s eyes. The smell on the air was of burning insulation wire, as if somewhere a plug was over loading. The fat kid’s hand twitched spastically, and then he fell.

The expression on his face was one of puzzlement, and misery. Mr. World says conversationally, to the air, look at him. He looks as if he just saw a sequence of 0s and 1s turn into a cluster of brightly colored birds, and then just fly away. There was no reply from the empty rock corridor. Mr World shouldered the body as if it weighed very little, and he opened the pixie diorama and dropped the body beside the still, covering it with its long, black raincoat.

He’d dispose of it this evening, he decided, and he grinned his scarred grin: hiding a body on a battlefield would almost be too easy. Nobody would ever notice. Nobody would care. For a little while there was silence in this place, and then a gruff voice which wasn’t Mr World’s cleared its throat in the shadows, and says, good start.

None of this can actually be happening. If it makes one more comfortable, one could simply think of it as a metaphor. Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city, a house of many rooms, a watchmaker who left his prize chronometer in the desert, someone who loves one - even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is to make sure one’s football team, army, business, or marriage thrives, prospers and triumphs over all opposition. Religions are places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world.

So, none of this is happening. Such things couldn’t occur in this day and age. Never a word of it’s literally true, although it all happened, and the next thing which happened, happened like this: at the foot of Lookout Mtn, which is scarcely more than a very high hill, men and women were gathered around a small bonfire in the rain. They stood beneath the trees, which provided poor cover, and they were arguing.

The lady Kali with her ink-black skin and white, sharp teeth, said, it’s time. Anansi, with lemon-yellow gloves and silvering hair, shook his head, and says, we can wait. While we can wait, we should wait. There was a murmur of disagreement from the crowd.

An old man with iron-gray hair: Czerno says, no, listen. He’s right. He was holding a small sledgehammer, resting the head of it on his shoulder, and continues, they have the high ground. The weather is against us. This is madness, to begin this now. Something which looked a little like a wolf and a little more like a man grunted and spat on the forest floor and says, when better to attack them, dedushka? Shall we wait until the weather clears when they expect it? He says, we go now. He says we move.

Isten of the Hungarians points out, there are clouds, between us and them. He had a fine black mustache, a large, dusty black hat, and the grin of a man who makes his living aluminum siding and new roofs and gutters to senior citizens but who always leaves town the day after the checks clear whether the work is done or not. A man in an elegant suit, who had until now said nothing, put his hands together, stepped into the firelight, made his point succinctly and clearly. There were nods and mutters of agreement.

A voice came from one of 3 warrior-women who comprised the Morrison standing so close together in the shadows they’d become an arrangement of blue-tattooed limbs and dangling crow’s wings. She said, it doesn’t matter whether this is a good time or a bad time. This is the time. They’ve been killing us. They’ll continue to kill us, whether we fight or not. Perhaps we’ll triumph. Perhaps we’ll die. Better to die together, on the attack, like gods, than to die fleeing and singly, like rats in a cellar. Another murmur, this time one of deep argument. She’d said it for all of them. Now was the time.

A very tall Chinese man, with a rope of tiny skulls around his neck says, the first head is mine. He began to walk, slowly and intently, up the mountain, shouldering a staff with a carved blade at the end of it, like a silver moon. Even Nothing cannot last forever. He might’ve been there, been Nowhere, for 10 minutes or for 10,000 years. It made no difference.

Time was an idea for which he no longer had any need. He could no longer remember his real name. He felt empty and cleansed, in this place which wasn’t a place. He was without form, and void.

He was nothing, and into this nothing a voice said, ho-hoka, cousin. We got to talk, and something which might once have been Shadow says, Whiskey Jack? Whiskey Jack replies in the darkness, yeah. He’s a hard man to hunt down, when he’s dead. He didn’t go to any of the places he figured. He had to look all over before he thought of checking here. Say, he ever find his tribe? Shadow remembered the man and the girl in the disco beneath the spinning mirrorball, and says, he guesses he found his family, but no, he never found his tribe.

Whiskey Jack says, sorry to have to disturb him. Shadow replies, no. He isn’t sorry. Let him be. He got what he wanted. He’s done. Whiskey Jack says, they’re coming for him. They’re going to revive him. Shadow says, but he’s done. It was all over and done. Whiskey Jack says, no such thing. Never any such thing. We’ll go to his place. He want a beer?

He guessed he would like a beer, at this and says sure. Whiskey Jack points, get him one too. There’s a cooler outside the door. They were in his shack. Shadow opened the door to the shack with hands it seemed to him he hadn’t possessed moments before.

There was a plastic cooler filled with chunks of river-ice out there, and, in the ice, a dozen cans of Budweiser. He pulled out a couple of cans of beer and then sat in the doorway and looked out over the valley. They were at the top of a hill, near a waterfall, swollen with melting snow and runoff. It fell, in stages, maybe 70ft below them, maybe a hundred.

The sun reflected from the ice which sheathed the trees which overhung the waterfall basin. The churning noise as the water crashed and fell filled the air. Shadow said, where are we? Whiskey Jack says, where he was last time. His place. He planning on holding onto his Bud til it warms up? They aren’t good like this.

Shadow stood up and him the can of beer, and says, he didn’t have a waterfall outside his place last time he was here. Whiskey Jack said nothing. He popped the top of the Bud, and drank half the can in one long slow swallow. Then he said, he remember his nephew? Harry Bluejay? The poet? He traded his Buick for his Winnebago. Remember?

Shadow says, sure. He didn’t know he was a poet. Whiskey Jack raised his chin and looked proud, saying, best damn poet in America. He drained the rest of his can of beer and the 2 men sat outside on a rock, by the pale green ferns, in the morning sun, and they watched the falling water and they drank beer. There was still snow on the ground, in the places where the shadows never lifted.

The earth was muddy and wet. Whiskey Jack continued, Harry was diabetic. It happens. Too much. Them people came to America, take our sugarcane, and potatoes, and corn, then sell us potato chips and caramel popcorn, and we the one’s who get sick. He’s sipped his beer, reflecting, and continued, he’d won a couple of prizes for his poetry. There were people in Minnesota who wanted to put his poems into a book. He was driving to Minnesota in a sports car to talk to them. He’d traded his ‘Bago for a yellow Miata. The doctors said they think he went into a coma while he was driving, went off the road, ran the car into one of his road signs. Too lazy to look at where he is, to read the mountains and the clouds, his people need road signs everywhere, and so Harry Bluejay went away forever, went to live with brother a Wolf. So nothing keeping him there any longer. He came north. Good fishing up here. Shadow says, he’s sorry about his nephew.

Whiskey Jack replies, him too. So now he’s living here in the north. Long way from white man’s diseases. White man’s roads. White man’s road signs. White man’s yellow Miatas. White man’s caramel popcorn. Shadow asks, white man’s beer? WJ looked at the can. He says, when his people finally give up and go home, he can leave us the Budweiser breweries (which makes the air smell extremely disgusting; great choice).

Shadow asks, where are we? Is he on the tree? Is he dead? Is he here? He thought everything was finished. What’s real? WJ says, yes. Shadow asks, yes? What kind of answer is yes? WJ says, it’s a good answer. True answer, too.

Shadow asks, is he a god as well? WJ shook his head and says, he’s a culture hero. We do the same shit gods do, we just screw up more and nobody worships us. They tell stories about us, but they tell the ones which make us look bad along with the ones where we came out fairly okay. Shadow says, he sees, and he did see, more or less. WJ says, look. This isn’t a good country for gods. His people figured this out early on. There are creator spirits who found the earth or made it or shit it out but think about it: who’s going to worship Coyote? He made love to Porcupine Woman (among others) and got his dick shot through with more needles than pin cushion. He’d argue with rocks and the rocks would win. So yeah, his people figured maybe there’s something at the back of it all a creator, a great spirit, and so we say thank you to it because it’s always good to say thank you, but we never built churches. We didn’t need to. The land was the church. The land was the religion. The land was older and wiser than the people who walked on it. It gave us salmon and corn and buffalo and passenger pigeons. It gave us wild rice and walleye. It gave us melon and squash and turkey, and we were the children of the land, just like the porcupine and the skunk and the blue jay. He finished his 2nd beer and gestured toward the river at the bottom of the waterfall, and says, he follows this river for a way, he’ll get to the lakes where the wild rice grows. In wild rice time, he goes out in his canoe, and cooks it, and stores it, and it’ll keep him for a long time. Different places grow different foods. Go far enough south there are orange trees, lemon trees, and those squashy green guys, look like pears - Shadow says, avocados.

Whiskey Jack agrees, avocados. This is them. They don’t grow up this way. This is wild rice country. Moose country. What he’s trying to say is America is like this. It’s not good growing country for gods. They don’t grow well here. They’re like avocados trying to grow in wild rice country. Shadow remembering says, they may not grow well, but they’re going to war. This was the only time he ever saw Whiskey Jack laugh. It was almost a bark, and it had little humor in it.

Whiskey Jack says, hey, Shadow, if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would he jump off too? Shadow felt good and says, maybe. He didn’t think it was just the beer. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so alive, and so together.

Whiskey Jack says, it’s not going to be a war. Shadow asks, then what is it? Whiskey Jack crushed the beer can between his hands, pressing it until it was flat, and says, pointing to the waterfall, look. The sun was high enough it caught the waterfall spray: a rainbow nimbus hung in the air.

Shadow thought it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Whiskey Jack said flatly, it’s going to be a bloodbath. Shadow saw it then. He saw it all, stark in its simplicity.

He shook his head, then he started to chuckle and he shook his head some more, and the chuckle became a full-throated laugh. WJ asks, he ok? Shadow says, he’s fine. He just saw the hidden Indians. Not all of them, but he saw them anyhow. WJ says, probably Ho Chunk, then. Those guys never could hide worth a damn.

He looked up at the sun, and says, time to go back. He stood up. Shadow says, it’s a 2-man con. It’s not a war at all, is it? WJ patted Shadow’s arm, and says, he’s not so dumb.

They walked back to WJ’s shack. He opened the door. Shadow hesitated, and says, he wishes he could stay here with him. This seems like a good place. WJ says, there are a lot of good places, this is kind of the point. Listen, gods die when they’re forgotten. People too, but the land’s still here. The good places, and the bad. The land isn’t going anywhere, and neither is he.

Shadow closed the door. Something was pulling at him. He was alone in the darkness once more, but the darkness became brighter and brighter until it was burning like the sun, and then the pain started. There was a woman who walked through a meadow, and spring flowers blossomed where she’d passed.

In this place and at this time, she called herself Easter. She passed a place where, long ago, a farmhouse had stood. Even today several walls were still standing, jutting out of the weeds and the meadow-grass like rotten teeth. A thin rain was falling.

The clouds were dark and low, and it was cold. A little way beyond the place where the farmhouse had been there was a tree, a huge silver-gray tree, winter-dead to all appearances, and leafless, and in front of the tree, on the grass, were frayed clumps of colorless fabric. The woman stopped at the fabric, and bent down, and picked up something brownish-white: it was a much-gnawed fragment of bone which might, once, have been a part of a human skull. She tossed it back down onto the grass.

Then she looked at the man on the tree and she smiled wryly, saying, they just aren’t as interesting naked. It’s the unwrapping which’s half the fun. Like with gifts, and eggs. The hawk-headed man who walked beside her looked down at his penis and seemed, for the first time, to become aware of his own nakedness, and says, he can look at the sun without even blinking.

Easter replies reassuringly, this is very clever of him. Now, let’s get him down from there. The wet ropes which held Shadow to the tree had long ago weathered and rotted, and they parted easily as the 2 people pulled on them. The body on the tree slipped and slid down toward the roots. They caught him as he fell, and they took him up, carrying him easily, although he was a very big man, and they put him down in the gray meadow.

The body on the grass was cold, and it didn’t breathe. There was a patch of dried black blood on its side, as if it’d been stabbed with a spear. Horus asks, what now? She says, now, we warm him. He knows what he has to do.

Horus says, he knows. He cannot. Easter replies, if he’s not willing to help, then he shouldn’t have called her here. Horus says, but it’s been too long. Easter states, she knows.

She reached out a white hand to Horus, and she touched his black hair. He blinked at her intently. Then he shimmered, as if in a heat haze. The hawk eye which faced her glinted orange, as if a flame had just been kindled inside it; a flame which had been long extinguished.

The hawk took to the air, and it sung upward, circling and ascending in a rising gyre, circling the place in the gray clouds where the sun might conceivably be, and as the hawk rose it became first a dot and then a speck, and then, to the naked eye, nothing at all, something which could only be imagined. The clouds started to thin and to evaporate, creating a patch of blue sky through which the sun glared. The single bright sunbeam penetrating the clouds and bathing the meadow was beautiful, but the image faded as more clouds vanished. Soon the morning sun was blazing down on this meadow like a summer sun at noon burning the water vapor from the morning’s rain into mists and burning the mist off into nothing at all. 

The golden sun bathed the body on the floor of the meadow with its radiance and its heat. Shades of pink and of woman brown touched the dead thing. The woman dragged the fingers of her right hand lightly across the body’s chest. She imagined she could feel a shiver in his breast - something which wasn’t a heartbeat, but still… 

She let her hand remain there, on his chest, just above his heart. She lowered her lips to Shadow’s lips, and she breathed into his lungs, a gentle in and out, and then the breath became a kiss. Her kiss was gentle, and it tasted of spring rains and meadow flowers. The wound in his side started to flow with liquid blood once more - a scarlet blood, which oozed like liquid rubies in the sunlight, and then the bleeding stopped. 

She kissed his cheeks and his forehead and said, come on. Time to get up. It’s all happening. He doesn’t want to miss it. His eyes fluttered, and then they opened,  2 eyes of a gray so deep it was colorless, the gray of evening, and he looked at her. She smiled, and then she removed her hand from his chest. He said, she called him back. 

He said it slowly, as if he’d forgotten how to speak English. There was hurt in his voice, and puzzlement. She agrees, yes. Shadow says, he was done. He was judged. It was over. She called him back. She dared. 

Easter replies, she’s sorry. Shadow says, yes. He sat up, slowly. He winced, and touched his side. Then he looked puzzled: there was a beading of wet blood there, but there was no wound beneath it. 

He reached out a hand, and she put her arm around him and helped him to his feet. He looked across the meadow as if he was trying to remember the names of the things he was looking at: the flowers in the long grass, the ruins of the farmhouse, the haze of green buds which fogged the branches of the huge silver tree. She asks, does he remember? Does he remember what he learned? Shadow replies, yes. It’ll fade though. Like a dream. He knows this. He lost his name and heart, and she brought him back. 

For the 2nd time she says, she’s sorry. They’re going to fight soon. The old gods and the new ones. Shadow asks, she wants him to fight for her? She wasted her time. She replies, she brought him back because this was what she had to do. It’s what she can do. It’s what she’s best at. What he does now is whatever he has to do. His call. She did her part. Suddenly, she became aware of his nakedness, and she blushed a burning scarlet flush, and she looked down and away. 

In the rain and the cloud, shadows moved up the side of the mountain, up to the rock pathways. White foxes padded up the hill in company with red-haired men in green jackets. There was a bull-headed minotaur walking beside an iron-fingered dactyl. A pig, a monkey, and a sharp-toothed ghoul clambered up the hillside, in company with a blue-skinned man holding a flaming bow, a bear with flowers twined into its fur, and a man in golden chainmail holding his sword of eyes.

Beautiful Antinous, who was the lover of Hadrian walked up the hillside at the head of a company of leather queens, their arms and chests steroid-swollen and sculpted into perfect shapes. A gray-skinned man, his one cyclopean eye a huge cabochon emerald, walked stiffly up the hill, ahead of several squat and swarthy men, their impassive faces as regular as Aztec carvings: they knew the secrets which the jungles had swallowed. A sniper at the top of the hill took careful aim at a white fox, and fired. There was an explosion, and a puff of cordite, gunpowder scent on the wet air.

The corpse was a young Japanese woman with her stomach blown away, and her face all bloody. Slowly, the corpse began to fade. The people continued up the hill, on 2 legs, on 4 legs, on no legs at all. The drive through TN mountain country had been startlingly beautiful whenever the storm had eased, and nerve-wracking whenever the rain had pelted down. 

Town and Laura had talked and talked and talked the whole way. He was so glad he’d met her. It was like meeting an old friend, a really good old friend one’d simply never met before. They talked history and movies and music, and she turned out to be the only person, and (I?) mean the only other person, he’d ever met who’d seen a foreign film (Mr Town was sure it was Spanish, white Laura was just as certain it was Polish) from the 60s called The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, a film he’d been starting to believe he’d hallucinated.

When Laura pointed out the first SEE ROCK CITY barn to him he chuckled and admitted this was where he was headed. She said this was so cool. She always wanted to visit those kinds of places, but she never made the time and always regretted it later. This was why she was on the road right now. 

She was having an adventure. She told him she was a travel agent. Separated from her husband. She admitted she didn’t think hey could ever get back together, and said it was her fault.

Town says, he can’t believe this. She sighs, and says, it’s true, Mack. She’s just not the woman he married anymore. He told her, well, people change, and before he could think he was telling her everything he could tell her about his life, he was even telling her about Woody and Stone, how the 3 of them were the 3 musketeers, and the 2 of them were killed, one thinks one’d get hardened to this kind of thing in government work, but one never did. It never happened, and she reached out a hand - it was cold enough he turned up the car’s heating - and squeezed his hand tightly in hers. 

Lunchtime, they ate bad Japanese food while a thunderstorm lowered on Knoxville and Town didn’t care the food was late, the miso soup was cold, or the sushi was warm. He loved the fact she was out, with him, having an adventure. Laura confided, well, she hates the idea of getting stale. She was just rotting away where she was. So she set off without her car and without her credit cards. She’s just relying on the kindness of strangers, and she’s had the best time. People have been so good to her. He asks, isn’t she scared? He means, she could be stranded, she could be mugged, she could starve. 

She shook her head. Then she said, with a hesitant smile, she met him, didn’t she?, and he couldn’t find anything to say. When the meal was over they ran through the storm to his car holding Japanese-language newspapers to cover their heads, and they laughed as they ran, like schoolchildren in the rain. He asks when they made it back in the car, how far can he take her? 

She tells him, shyly, she’ll go as far as he’s going, Mack. He was glad he hadn’t used the Big Mack line. This woman wasn’t a bar-room one-nighter, Town knew this in his soul. It might have taken him 50 years to find her, but this was finally it, this was the one, this wild, magical woman with the long dark hair. 

This was love. As they approached Chattanooga he said, look. The wipers sloshed the rain across the windshield, blurring the gray of the city. He continues, how about he finds a motel for her tonight? He’ll pay for it, and once he makes his delivery, we can. Well, we can take a hot bath together, for a start. Warm her up. 

Laura replies, this sounds wonderful. What’s he delivering? He tells her, and chuckles, this stick. The one on the backseat. She says, humoring him, ok. Then don’t tell her, Mr. Mysterious. He told her it’d be best if she waited in the car in the Rock City parking lot while he made his delivery. 

He drove up the side of the Lookout Mountain in the gusting rain never breaking 30 mph, with headlights burning. They parked at the back of the parking lot. He turned off the engine. Laura asks with a smile, hey. Mack. Before he gets out of the car, doesn’t she get a hug? 

Town replies, she surely does, and he put his arms around her, and she snuggled close to him while the rain pattered a tattoo on the roof of the Ford Explorer. He could smell her hair. There was a faintly unpleasant scent beneath the perfume. Travel would do it, every time. 

This bath, he decided, was a real must for both of them. He wondered if there was any place in Chattanooga where he could get those scented bath bombs his first wife had loved so much. Laura raised her head against his and her hand stroked the line of his neck, absently. Laura says, Mack… she keeps thinking. He must really want to know what happened to those friends of his. Woody and Stone. Does he? 

He says, yeah, moving his lips down to hers, for their first kiss, and continues, sure he does. So she showed him. Shadow walked the meadow, making his own slow circles around the trunk of the tree, gradually widening his circle. Sometimes he’d stop and pick something up: a flower, or a leaf, or a pebble, or a twig, or a blade of grass.

He’d examine it minutely, as if concentrating entirely on the twigness of the twig, the leafness of the leaf, as if he were seeing it for the first time. Easter found herself reminded of the gaze of a baby, at the point where it learns to focus. She didn’t dare to talk to him. At this moment, it’d have been sacrilegious. 

She watched him, exhausted as she was, and she wondered. About 20ft out from the base of the tree, half-overgrown with long meadow-grass and dead creepers, he found a canvas bag. Shadow picked it up, untied the knots at the top of the bag, loosened the drawstring. The clothes he pulled out were his own. 

They were old, but still serviceable. He turned the shoes over in his hands. He stroked the fabric of the shirt, the wool of the sweater, stared at them as if he were looking at them across a million years. For some time he looked at them, then, one by one, he put them on. 

He put his hands into his pockets, and he looked puzzled as he pulled one hand out holding what looked to Easter like a white and gray marble. He said, no coins. It was the first thing he’d said in several hours. Easter echoed, no coins? 

He shook his head, and says, it was good to have the coins. They gave him something to do with his hands. He bent down to pull on his shoes. Once he was dressed, he looked more normal. 

Grave, though. She wondered how far he’d traveled, and what it’d cost him to return. He wasn’t the first whose return she’d initiated, and she knew, soon enough, the million-year stare would fade, and the memories and the dreams he’d brought back from the tree would be elided by the world of things one could touch. This was the way it always went. 

She led their way to the rear of the meadow. Her mount waited in the trees. She tells him, it can’t carry us both. She’ll make her own way home. Shadow nodded. 

He seemed to be trying to remember something. Then he opened his mouth and he screeched a cry of welcome and of joy. The thunderbird opened its cruel beak, and it screeched a welcome back at him. Superficially, at least, it resembled a condor.

Its feathers were black, with a purplish sheen, and its neck was banded with white. Its beak was black and cruel. A raptor’s beak, made for tearing. At rest, on the ground, with its wings folded away, it was the size of a black bear, and its head was on a level with Shadow’s own. 

Horus said, proudly, he brought him. They live in the mountains. Shadow nodded and says, he had a dream of thunderbirds once. Damnedest dream he’s ever had. The thunderbird opened its beak and made a surprisingly gentle noise, Crawroo? Shadow asks, he heard his dream too? 

He reached out a hand and rubbed it gently against the bird’s head. The thunderbird pushed up against him like an affectionate pony. He scratched it behind where the ears must’ve been. Shadow turned to Easter and asks, she rode him here? 

She says, yes. He can ride him back, if he lets him. She says, it’s easy. If he doesn’t fall. Like riding the lightning. Shadow asks, will he see her back there? She shook her head and tells him, she’s done, honey. He go do what he needs to do. She’s tired. Bringing him back like this… it took a lot out of her. She needs to rest, to save up her energies until her festival starts. She’s sorry. Good luck. 

Shadow nodded, and said, Whiskey Jack. He saw him. After he passed on. He came and found him. We drank beer together. She says, yes. She’s sure he did. Shadow asks, will he ever see her again? She looked at him with eyes the green of ripening corn. 

She said nothing. Then, abruptly, she shook her head and says, she doubts it. Shadow clambered awkwardly onto the thunderbird’s back. He felt like a mouse on the back of a hawk. 

There was an ozone taste in his mouth, metallic and blue. Something crackled. The thunderbird extended its wings, and started to flap them, hard. As the ground fell away beneath them, Shadow clung on, his heart pounding in his chest like a wild thing. 

It was exactly like riding the lightning. Laura took the stick from the backseat of the car. She left Mr. Town in the front seat of the Ford Explorer, and climbed out of the car, and walked through the rain to Rock City. The ticket office was  closed. 

The door to the gift shop wasn’t locked and she walked through it, past the rock candy and the display of SEE ROCK CITY birdhouses, into the Eighth Wonder of the World. Nobody challenged her, although she passed several men and women on the path, in the rain. Many of them looked faintly artificial; several of them were translucent. She walked across a swinging rope bridge. 

She passed the white deer gardens, and pushed herself through he Fat Man’s Squeeze, where the path ran between 2 rock walls, and, in the end, she stepped over a chain, with a sign on it telling her this part of the attraction was closed, and she went into a cavern, and she saw a man sitting on a  plastic chair, in front of a diorama of drunken gnomes. He was reading a Washington Post by the light of a small electric lantern. When he saw her he folded the paper and placed it beneath his chair. He stood up, a tall man with close-cropped orange hair in an expensive raincoat, and he gave her a small bow. 

He said, he shall assume Mr Town is dead. Welcome, spear-carrier. She replies, thank you. She’s sorry about Mack. Were they friends? He responds, not at all. He should’ve kept himself alive if he wanted to keep his job, but she brought his stick. He looked her up and down with eyes which glimmered like the orange embers of a dying fire, and says, he’s afraid she has the advantage of him. They call him Mr. World, here at the top of the hill. 

She replies, she’s Shadow’s wife. He says, of course. The lovely Laura. He should’ve recognized her. He had several photos of her up above his bed, in the cell we once shared, and, if she doesn’t mind him saying so, she’s looking lovelier than she has any right to look. Shouldn’t she be further along the whole road-to-rot-and-ruin business by now? She says simply, she was. She was much further along. She’s not sure what changed. She knew when she started felling better. It was this morning. Those women, in the farm, they gave her water from their well. An eyebrow raised, and asks, Urn’s Well? Surely not. 

She pointed to herself. Her skin was pale, and her eye-sockets were dark, but she was manifestly whole: if she was indeed a walking corpse, she was freshly dead. Mr. World says, it won’t last. The Norns gave her a little taste of the past. It’ll dissolve into the present soon enough, and then those pretty blue eyes will roll out of their sockets and ooze down those pretty cheeks, which will, by then, of course, no longer be so pretty. By the way, she has his stick. Can he have it please? He pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes, took a cigarette, lit it with a disposable black Bic. 

She asks, can she have one of those? He replies, sure. He’ll give her a cigarette if she gives him his stick. She declines, no. If he wants it, it’s worth more than just a cigarette. He said nothing. 

She says, she wants answers. She wants to know things. He lit a cigarette and passed it to her. She took it and inhaled. Then she blinked and says, she can almost taste this one. She thinks maybe she can. 

She smiled, and says, mm. Nicotine. He replies, yes. Why did she go to the women in the farmhouse? She says, Shadow told her to go to them. He said to ask them for water. World says, he wonders if he knew what it’d do. Probably not. Still, this is the good thing about having him dead on his tree. He knows where he is at all times, now. He’s off the board. 

She states, he set her husband up. He set him up all the way, them people. He has a good heart, he know this? Mr World replies, yes. He knows. She asks, why did he want him? World says, patterns, and distraction. When this is all done with, he guesses he’ll sharpen a stick of mistletoe and go down to the ashtray, and ram it through his eye. This is what those morons fighting out there have never been able to grasp. It’s never a matter of old and new. It’s only about patterns. Now. His stick, please. 

She asks, why does he want it? World replies, it’s a souvenir of this whole sorry mess. Don’t worry, it’s not mistletoe. He flashed a grin, and continues, it symbolizes a spear, and in this sorry world, the symbol is the thing. The noises from outside grew louder. 

She asks, which side is he on? He tells her, it’s not about sides, but since she asked, he’s on the winning side. Always. This is what he does best. She nodded, and she didn’t let go of the stick, and says, she can see this. She turned away from him, and looked out of the cavern door. 

Far below her, in the rocks, she could see something which glowed and pulsed. It wrapped itself around a thin, mauve-faced bearded man, who was beating at it with a squeegee stick, the kind people like him use to smear across car windshields at traffic lights. There was a scream, and they both vanished from view. She says, okay. She’ll give him the stick.

World’s voice came from behind her, saying reassuringly, good girl, in a way which struck her as being both patronizing and indefinably male. It made her skin crawl. She waited in the rock doorway until she could hear his breathing in her ear. She had to wait until he got close enough.

She had this much figured out. The ride was more than exhilarating; it was electric. They swept through the storm like jagged bolts of lightning, flashing from cloud to cloud; they moved like the thunder’s roar, like the swell and rip of the hurricane. It was a crackling, impossible journey, and Shadow forgot to be scared almost immediately. 

One can’t be afraid when one rides the thunderbird. There’s no fear: only the power of the storm, unstoppable and all-consuming, and the joy of the flight. Shadow dug his fingers into the thunderbird’s feathers feeling the static prickle on his skin. Blue sparks writhed across his hands like tiny snakes. 

Rain washed his face. He shouted over the roar of the storm, this is the best. As if it understood him, the bird started to rise higher, every wing beat a clap of thunder, and it swooped and dove and tumbled through the dark clouds. Shadow, his words ripped away by the wind says, in his dream, he was hunting it. In his dream. He had to bring back a feather. 

Yes. The word was a static crackle in the radio of his mind. They came to us for feathers, to prove they were men; and they came to us to cut the stones from our heads, to gave their dead our lives. An image filled his mind then: of a thunderbird - a female, he assumed, for her plumage was brown, not black - lying freshly dead on the side of a mountain. 

Beside it was a woman. She was breaking open its skull with a knob of flint. She picked through the wet shards of bone and the brains until she found a smooth clear stone the tawny color of garnet, opalescent fires flickering in its depths. Eagle stones, thought Shadow. 

She was going to take it to her infant son dead these last 3 nights, and she would lay it on his cold breast. By the next sunrise the boy would be alive and laughing, and the jewel would be gray and clouded and, like the bird it’d been stolen from, quite dead. He said to the bird, he understands. The bird threw back its head and crowed, and its cry was the thunder. 

The world beneath them flashed past in one strange dream. Laura adjusted her grip on the stick, and she waited for the man she knew as Mr World to come to her. She was facing away from him, looking out at the storm, and the dark green hills below. She thought, in this sorry world the symbol is the thing. Yes. 

She felt his hand close softly on to her right shoulder. She thought, good. He doesn’t want to alarm her. He’s scared she’ll throw his stick out into the storm, and it’ll tumble down the mountainside, and he’ll lose it. She leaned back, just a little, until she was touching his chest with her back. His left arm curved around her. 

It was an intimate gesture. His left hand was open in front of her. She closed both of her hands around the top of the stick, exhaled, concentrated. He said, in her ears, please. His stick. 

She replies, yes. It’s his, and then, not knowing if it’d mean anything, she said, she dedicates this death to Shadow, and she stabbed the stick into her chest just below the breastbone, felt it writhe and change in her hands as the stick became a spear. The boundary between sensation and pain had diffused since she’d died. She felt the spearhead penetrate her chest, felt it push out through her back. A moment’s resistance - she pushed harder - and the spear thrust into Mr World. 

She could feel the warm breath of him on the cool skin of her neck, as he wailed in her hurt and surprise, impaled on the spear. She didn’t recognize the words he spoke, nor the language he said them in. She pushed the shaft of the spear further in, forcing it through her body, into and through his. She could feel his hot blood spurting onto her back. 

He says in English, bitch. You fucking bitch. There was a wet gurgling quality to his voice. She guessed the blade of the spear must’ve sliced a lung. Mr. World was moving now, or trying to move, and every move he made rocked her too: they were joined by the pole, impaled together like 2 fish on a single spear. 

He now had a knife in one hand, she saw, and he stabbed at her chest and breasts randomly and wildly with the knife, unable to see what he was doing. She didn’t care. What are knife cuts to a corpse? She brought her fist down, hard, on his waving wrist, and the knife went flying to the floor of the cavern. 

She kicked it away, and now he was crying and wailing. She could feel him pushing against her, his hands fumbling at her back, his hot tears on her neck. His blood was soaking her back, spurting down the back of her legs. She says, in a dead whisper which wasn’t without a certain dark amusement, this must look so undignified.

She felt World stumble behind her, and she stumbled too, and then she slipped in the blood - all of it his which was pudding on the floor of the cave, and they both went down. The thunderbird landed in the Rock City parking lot. Rain was falling in sheets. Shadow could barely see a dozen feet in front of his face.

He let go of the thunderbird’s feathers and half-slipped, half-tumbled to the wet tarmac. The bird looked at him. Lightning flashed, and the bird was gone. Shadow climbed to his feet.

The parking lot was 3-quarters empty. Shadow started toward the entrance. He passed a brown Ford Explorer, parked against a rock wall. There was something deeply familiar about the car, and he glanced up at it curiously, noticing the man inside the car, slumped over the steering wheel as if asleep. 

Shadow pulled open the driver’s door. He’d last seen Town standing outside the motel in the center of America. The expression on his face was one of surprise. His neck had been expertly broken. 

Shadow touched the man’s face. Still warm. Shadow could smell a scent on the air in the car; it was faint, like the perfume of someone who left a room years before, but Shadow would’ve known it anywhere. He slammed the door of the Explorer and made his way across the parking lot. 

As he walked he felt a twinge in his side, a sharp, jabbing pain which must’ve only existed in his head, as it lasted for only a second or less and then it was gone. There was nobody in the gift shop, nobody selling tickets. He walked through the building and out into the gardens of Rock City. Thunder rumbled, and it rattled the branches of the trees and shook deep inside the huge rocks, and the rain fell with cold violence. 

It was late afternoon, but it was dark as night. A trail of lightning speared across the clouds, and Shadow wondered if this was the thunderbird returning to its high crags, or just an atmospheric discharge, or whether the 2 ideas were, on some level, the same thing, and of course they were. This was the point, after all. Somewhere a man’s voice called out. 

Shadow heard it. The only words he recognized or thought he recognized were ‘… to Odin!’. Shadow hurried across 7 States Flag Court, the flagstones now running fast with a dangerous amount of rainwater. Once he slipped on the slick stone. 

There was a thick layer of cloud surrounding the mountain, and in the gloom and the storm beyond the courtyard he could see no states at all. There was no sound. The place seemed utterly abandoned. He called out, and imagined he heard something answering. 

He walked toward the place from which he thought the sound had come. Nobody. Nothing. Just a chain marking the entrance to a cave as off-limits to guests. 

Shadow stepped over the chain. He looked around, peering into the darkness. His skin prickled. A voice from behind him, in the shadows, said, very quietly, he’s never disappointed him. 

Shadow didn’t turn. He says, this is weird. He disappointed himself all the way. Every time. The voice chuckled, not at all. He did everything he was meant to do, and more. He took everybody’s attention, so they never looked at the hand with the coin in it. It’s called misdirection, and there’s power in the sacrifice of a son - power enough and more than enough, to get the whole ball rolling. To tell the truth, he’s proud of him. Shadow says, it was crooked. All of it. None of it was for real. It was just a set-up for a massacre.

Wed’s voice from the shadows says, exactly. It was crooked, but it was the only game in town. Shadow says, he wants Laura. He wants Loki. Where are they? There was only silence. A spray of rain gusted at him. 

Thunder rumbled somewhere close at hand. He walked further in. Loki Lie-Smith sat on the ground with his back to a metal cage. Inside the cage, drunken pixies tended their still. 

He was covered with a blanket. Only his face showed, and his hands, white and long, came around the blanket. An electric lantern sat on a chair beside him. The lantern’s batteries were close to failing, and the light it cast was faint and yellow. 

He looked pale, and he looked rough. His eyes, though. His eyes were still fiery, and they glared at Shadow as he walked through the cavern. When Shadow was several paces from Loki, he stopped. 

Loki, his voice raspy and wet, says, he’s too late. He has thrown the spear. He’s dedicated the battle. It’s begun. Shadow replies, no shit. Loki states, no shit. It doesn’t matter what he does anymore. It’s too late. Shadow says, ok. 

He stopped and thought then says, he says there’s some spear he had to throw to kick off the battle. Like the whole Uppsala thing. This is the battle he’ll be feeding on. Is he right? Silence. He could hear Loki breathing, a ghastly rattling inhalation. Shadow says, he figured it out. Kind of. He’s not sure when he figured it out. Maybe when he was hanging on the tree. Maybe before. It was something Wed said to him at Xmas. 

Loki just stared at him, saying nothing. Shadow states, it’s just a 2-man con. Like the bishop and the diamond necklace and the cop. Like the guy with the fiddle, and the guy who wants to buy the fiddle, and the poor sap between them who pays for the fiddle. 2 men, who appear to be on opposite sides, playing the same game. Loki whispered, he’s ridiculous. Shadow responds, why? He liked what he did at the motel. This was smart. He needed to be there, to make sure everything went according to plan. He saw him. He even realized who he was, and he still never twigged he was their Mr World, or maybe he did, somewhere down deep. He knew he knew his voice, anyway. 

Shadow raised his voice, he can come out, saying this to the cavern, continuing, wherever he is. Show himself. The wind howled in the opening of the cavern, and it drove a spray of rainwater in toward them. Shadow shivered, and says, he’s tired of being played for a sucker. Show himself. Let him see him. There was a change in the shadows at the back of the cave. 

Something became more solid; something shifted. Wed’s familiar rumble, he knew too damned much, m’boy. Shadow replies, so they didn’t kill him. Wed, from the shadows, says, they killed him. None of this would’ve worked if they hadn’t. 

His voice was faint - not actually quiet, but there was a quality to it which made Shadow this of an old radio not quite tuned in to a distant station. Wed says, if he hadn’t died for real, we could never have got them here. Kali and the Morrigan and the Loa, and the fucking Albanians and - well, he’s seen them all. It was his death which drew them all together. He was the sacrificial lamb. Shadow says, no. He was the Judas Goat. The wraith-shape in the shadows swirled and shifted, and replies, not at all. This implies he was betraying the old gods for the new. Which wasn’t what we were doing. 

Loki whispered, not at all. Shadow states, he can see this. Them 2 weren’t betraying either side. They were betraying both sides. Wed says, he guesses we were at that. He sounded pleased with himself. 

Shadow says, he wanted a massacre. He needed a blood sacrifice. A sacrifice of gods. The wind grew stronger; the howl across the cave door became a screech, as if of something immeasurably huge in pain. Wed responds, and why the hell not? He’s been trapped in this damned land for almost 1200 years. His blood is thin. He’s hungry. Shadow says, and them 2 feed on death. 

He thought he could see Wed, now, standing in the shadows. Behind him - through him - were the bars of a cage which held what looked like plastic leprechauns. He was a shape made of darkness, who became more real the more Shadow looked away from him, allowed him to take shape in his peripheral vision. Wed says, he feeds on death which is dedicated to him. 

Shadow says, like his death on the tree. Wed replies, this was special. Shadow, looking at Loki, asks, and does he also feed on death? Loki shook his head, wearily. 

Shadow states, no, of course. He feeds on chaos. Loki smiled at this, a brief pained smile, and orange flames danced in his eyes, and flickered like burning lace beneath his pale skin. Wed says from the corner of Shadow’s eye, we couldn’t have done it without him. He’d been with so many women… Shadow replies, he needed a son. 

Wed’s ghost-voice echoed, he needed him, my boy. Yes. His own boy. He knew he’d been conceived, but his mother left the country. It took us so long to find him, and when we did find him, he was in prison. We needed to find out what made him tick. What buttons we could press to make him move. Who he was. Loki looked, momentarily, pleased with himself. Shadow wanted to hit him. Wed continues, and he had a wife to go back home to. It was unfortunate. Not insurmountable. 

Loki whispered, she was no good for him. He was better off without her. Wed says, if it could’ve been any other way, and this time Shadow knew what he meant. Loki panted, and if she’d had - the grace - to stay dead. Wood and Stone - were good men. He was going - to be allowed to escape - when the train crossed the Dakotas… Shadow asks, where is she? 

Loki reached a pale arm, and pointed to the back of the cavern, and says, she went that-a-way. Then, without warning, he tipped forward, his body collapsing to the rock floor. Shadow saw what the blanket had hidden from him; the pool of blood, the hole through Loki’s back, the fawn raincoat soaked black with blood. Shadow asks, what happened?

Loki said nothing. Shadow didn’t think he’d be saying anything anymore. Wed’s distant voice says, his wife happened to him, m’boy. He’d become harder to see, as if he was fading back into the ether, and continues, but the battle will bring him back. As the battle with bring him back for good. He’s a ghost, and he’s a corpse, but we’ve still won. The game was rigged. 

Shadow says, remembering, rigged games are the easiest to beat. There was no answer. Nothing moved in the shadows. Shadow says, goodbye, and then adds, Father, but by then there was no trace of anybody else in the cavern. 

Nobody at all. Shadow walked back up to the 7 States Flag Court, but saw nobody, and heard nothing but the crack and whip of the flags in the storm wind. There were no people with swords at the Thousand-Ton Balanced Rock, no defenders of the Swing-A-Long Bridge. He was alone. 

There was nothing to see. The place was deserted. It was an empty battlefield. No. Not deserted. Not exactly. He was just in the wrong place. This was Rock City. It’d been a place of awe and worship for thousands of years; today the millions of tourists who walked through the gardens and swung their way across the Swing-A-Long Bridge had the same effect as water turning a million prayer wheels. 

Reality was thin here, and Shadow knew where the battle must be taking place. With this, he began to walk. He remembered how he’d felt on the Carousel, tried to feel like this but in a new moment of time… He remembered turning the Winnebago, shifting it at right angles to everything. 

He tried to capture this sensation - and then, easily and perfectly, it happened. It was like pushing through a membrane, like plunging up from the deep water into air. With one step he’d moved from tourist path on the mountain to…  to somewhere real. He was Backstage.

He was still on the top of a mountain. This much remained the same, but it was so much more than this. This mountaintop was the quintessence of place, the heart of things as they were. Compared to it, the Lookout Mountain he’d left was a painting on a backdrop, or a papier-mâché model seen on a TV screen - merely a representation of the thing, not the thing itself. 

This was the true place. The rock walls formed a natural amphitheater. Paths of stone wound around and across it, forming twisty natural bridges which Eschered through and across the rock walls, and the sky…. The sky was dark. 

It was lit, and the world beneath it was illuminated, by a burning greenish-white streak, brighter than the sun, which forked crazily across the sky from end to end, like a white rip in the darkened sky. It was lightning, Shadow realized. Lightning held in one frozen moment, which stretched into forever. The light it cast was harsh and unforgiving: it washed out faces, hollowed eyes into dark pits. 

This was the moment of the storm. The paradigms were shifting. He could feel it. The old world, a world of infinite vastness and illimitable resources and future, was being confronted by something else - a web of energy, of opinions, of gulfs. 

People believe, thought Shadow. It’s what people do. They believe, and then they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and don’t trust the conjurations. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. 

People imagine, and people believe: and it’s this belief, this rock-solid belief, which makes things happen. The mountaintop was an arena; he saw this immediately, and on each side of the arena he could see them arrayed. They were too big. Everything was too big in this place. 

There were old gods in this place: gods with skins the brown of old mushrooms, the pink of chicken-flesh, the yellow of autumn leaves. Some were crazy and some were sane. Shadow recognized the old gods. He’d met them already, or he’d met others like them. 

There were ifrits and piskies, giants and dwarfs. He saw the women he’d met in the darkened bedroom in RI, saw the writing green snake-coils of her hair. He saw Mama-ji, from the Carousel and there was blood on her hands and a smile on her face. He knew them all. 

He recognized the new ones, too. There was somebody who had to be a railroad baron, in an antique suit, his watch-chain stretched across his vest. He had the air of one who’d seen better days. His forehead twitched. 

There were the great gray gods of the airplanes, heirs to all the dreams of heavier-than-air travel. There were car gods: a powerful, serious-faced contingent, with blood on their black gloves and on their chrome teeth: recipients of human sacrifice on a scale undreamed-of since the Aztecs. Even they looked uncomfortable. Worlds change. 

Others had faces of smudged phosphors; they glowed gently, as if they existed in their own light. Shadow felt sorry for them all. There was an arrogance to the new ones. Shadow could see this, but there was also a fear. 

They were afraid unless they kept pace with a changing world, unless they remade and redrew and rebuilt the world in their image, their time would already be over. Each side faced the other with bravery. To each side, the opposition were the demons, the monsters, the damned. Shadow could see an initial skirmish had taken place. 

There was already blood on the rocks. They were readying themselves for the real battle; for the real war. It was now or never, he thought. If he didn’t move now, it’d be too late. 

In America everything goes on forever, said a voice in the back of his head. The 1950s lasted for a thousand years. He has all the time in the world. Shadow walked in something which was half a stroll, half a controlled stumble, into the center of the arena. He could feel eyes on him, eyes and things which weren’t eyes. 

He shivered. The buffalo voice said, he’s doing just fine. Shadow thought, damn right. He came back from the dead this morning. After this, everything else should be a piece of cake. Shadow says to the air, in a conversational voice, you know, this isn’t a war. This was never intended to be a war, and if any of them think this is a war, they’re deluding themselves. 

He heard grumbling noises from both sides. He had impressed nobody. A minotaur from one side of the arena lowed, we’re fighting for our survival. A mouth in a pillar of glittering smoke, from the other shouted, we’re fighting for our existence. 

Shadow says, this is a bad land for gods. As an opening statement it wasn’t Friends, Romans, Countrymen, but it’d do. He continues, they’ve probably all learned this, in their own way. The old gods are ignored. The new gods are as quickly taken up as they’re abandoned, cast aside for the next big thing. Either they’ve been forgotten, or they’re scared they’re going to be rendered obsolete, or maybe they’re just getting tired of existing on the whim of people. The grumbles were fewer now. 

He’d said something they agreed with. Now, while they’re listening, he had to tell them the story. He continues, there was a god who came here from a far land, and whose power and influence waned as belief in him faded. He was a god who took his power from sacrifice, and from death, and especially from war. He’d have deaths of those who fell in war dedicated to him - whole battlefields which, in the old country, gave him power and sustenance. Now he was old. He made his living as a grifter, working with another god from his pantheon, a god of chaos and deceit. Together they rooked the gullible. Together they took people for all they’d got. Somewhere in there - maybe 50 years ago, maybe a hundred - they put a plan into motion, a plan to create a reserve of power they could both tap into. Something which would make them stronger than they’d ever been. After all, what could be more powerful than a battlefield covered with dead gods? The game they played was called ‘Let’s You and Him Fight.’ Do they see? The battle they’re here to fight isn’t something which any of them can win or lose. The winning and the losing are unimportant to him, to them. What matters is enough of them die. Each of them which falls in battle gives him power. Every one of them which dies, feeds him. Do they understand? The roaring, whoompfing sound of something catching on fire echoed across the arena. 

Shadow looked to the place the noise came from. An enormous man, his skin the deep brown of mahogany, his chest naked, wearing a top hat, cigar sticking rakishly from his mouth spoke in a voice as deep as the grave. Baron Samedi said, okay, but Odin. He died. At the peace talks. Motherfuckers killed him. He died. He knows death. Nobody goin’ to fool him about death. Shadow said, obviously. He had to die for real. He sacrificed his physical body to make this war happen. After the battle he’d have been more powerful than he’d ever been. 

Somebody called, who is he? Shadow replies, he is - he was - he is his son. One of the new gods - Shadow suspected it was a drug from the way it smiled and spangled and shivered - said, but Mr World said - Shadow interrupts, there was no Mr World. There never was. He was just another one of them bastards trying to feed on the chaos he created. He could see they believed him, and he could see the hurt in their eyes. 

Shadow shook his head, and says, you know, he thinks he’d rather be a man than a god. We don’t need anyone to believe in us. We just keep going anyhow. It’s what we do. There was silence, in the high place, and then, with a shocking crack, the lightning bolt frozen in the sky crashed to the mountaintop, and the arena went entirely dark. They glowed, many of those presences, in the darkness. Shadow wondered if they were going to argue with him, to attack him, to try and kill him. 

He waited for some kind of response, and then Shadow realized the lights were going out. The gods were leaving this place, first in handfuls, and then by scores, and finally in their hundreds. A spider the size of a Rottweiler scuttled heavily toward him, on 7 legs; its cluster of eyes glowed faintly. Shadow held his ground, although he felt slightly sick. 

When the spider got close enough, it said, in Mr. Nancy’s voice, this was a good job. Proud of him. He done good, kid. Shadow says, thank you. Nancy states, we should get him back. Too long in this place is goin’ to mess him up. It rested one brown-haired spider leg on Shadow’s shoulder… and, back on 7 States Flag Court, Mr Nancy coughed. 

His right hand rested on Shadow’s shoulder. The rain had stopped. Nancy held his left hand across his side, as if it hurt. Shadow asked if he was okay. 

Nancy replies, he’s tough as old nails. Tougher. He didn’t sound happy. He sounded like an old man in pain. There were dozens of them, standing or sitting on the ground or on the benches. 

Some of them looked badly injured. Shadow could hear a rattling noise in the sky, approaching from the south. He looked at Mr Nancy and asks, helicopters? Mr Nancy nodded and says, don’t he worry about them. Not any more. They’ll just clean up the mess, and leave. They’re good at it. 

Shadow replies, got it. Shadow knew there was one part of the mess he wanted to see for himself, before it was cleaned up. He borrowed a flashlight from a gray-haired man who looked like a retired news anchor and started to hunt. He found Laura stretched out on the ground in a side-cavern, beside a diorama of mining gnomes straight out of Snow White. 

The floor beneath her was sticky with blood. She was on her side, where Loki must’ve dropped her after he’d pulled the spear out of them both. One of Laura’s hands clutched her chest. She looked dreadfully vulnerable. 

She also looked dead, but then Shadow was almost used to this by now. Shadow squatted beside her and he touched her cheek with his hand, and he said her name. Her eyes opened, and she lifted her head and turned it until she was looking at him. She says, hello, puppy. 

Her voice was thin. Shadow replies, hi, Laura. What happened here? She says, nothing. Just stuff. Did they win? Shadow states, he doesn’t know. He thinks these things are kind of relative, but he stopped the battle they were trying to start. 

She says, her clever puppy. This man, Mr World, he said he was going to put a stick through his eye. She didn’t like him at all. Shadow replies, he’s dead. She killed him, hon. She added and said, that’s good. Her eyes closed. 

Shadow’s hand found her cold hand, and he held it in his. In time she opened her eyes again, and asked, did he ever figure out how to bring her back from the dead? He replies, he guesses, he knows one way, anyway. She says, that’s good. 

She squeezed his hand with her cold hand, and then she says, and the opposite? What about that? Shadow asks, the opposite? She whispered, yes. She thinks she must’ve earned it. Shadow says, he doesn’t want to do this. 

She said nothing. She simply waited. Shadow said, okay. Then he took his hand from hers and put it to her neck. She said, that’s her husband. She said it proudly. Shadow replies, he loves her, babes. She whispered, love you, puppy. 

He closed his hand around the golden coin which hung around her neck. He tugged, hard, at the chain, which snapped easily. Then he took the gold coin between his finger and thumb, and blew on it, and opened his hand wide. The coin was gone. 

Her eyes were still open, but they didn’t move. He bent down then, and kissed her, gently, on her cold cheek, but she didn’t respond. He didn’t expect her to. Then he got up and walked out of the cavern, to stare into the night. 

The storms had cleared. The air felt fresh and clean and new once more. Tomorrow, he had no doubt, would be one hell of a beautiful day. The 2 of them were driving the VW bus down to FL on I-75. 

They’d been driving since dawn, or rather, Shadow had driven, and Mr Nancy had sat up front in the passenger seat and, from time to time, and with a pained expression on his face, offered to drive. Shadow always said no. Mr Nancy suddenly asked, is he happy? He’d been staring at Shadow for several hours. 

Whenever Shadow glanced over to his right, Nancy was looking at him with his earth-brown eyes. Shadow replies, not really, but he’s not dead yet. Nancy says, huh? Shadow replies, call no man happy until he is dead. Herodotus. 

Nancy raised a white eyebrow, and he said, he’s not dead yet and mostly because he’s not dead yet, he’s happy as a clamboy. Shadow says, the Herodotus thing. It doesn’t mean the dead are happy. It means one can’t judge the shape of someone’s life until it’s over and done. Nancy replies, he don’t even judge then, and as for happiness, there’s a lot of different kinds of happiness, just as there’s a hell of a lot of different kinds of dead. Him, he’ll just take what he can get when he can get it. Shadow changed the subject and said, those helicopters. The ones which took away the bodies, and the injured. 

Nancy asks, what about them? Shadow asks, who sent them? Where did they come from? Nancy replies, he shouldn’t worry himself about this. They’re like valkyries or buzzards. They come because they have to come. Shadow states, if he says so. 

Nancy says, the dead and the wounded will be taken care of. He ask him, old Jacquel’s going to be very busy for the next month or so. Tell him somethin’, Shadow-boy. Shadow replies, okay. Nancy asks, he learn anythin’ from all this? Shadow shrugged and says, he doesn’t know. Most of what he learned on the tree he’s already forgotten. He thinks he met some people, but he’s not certain of anything anymore. It’s like one of those dreams which changes one. One keeps some of the dream forever, and one knows things down deep inside oneself, because it happened to one, but when going to look for details they kind of just slip out of one’s head.

Nancy replies, yeah, and then says grudgingly, he’s not so dumb. Shadow says, maybe not, but he wishes he could’ve kept more of what passed through his hands, since he got out of prison. He was given so many things, and he lost them again. Mr Nancy said, maybe he kept more than he thinks. Shadow says, no. 

They crossed the border into FL, and Shadow saw his first palm tree. He wondered if they’d planted it there on purpose, at the border, just so one knew one was in FL now. Mr Nancy began to snore, and Shadow glanced over at him. The old man still looked very gray, and his breath was rasping. 

Shadow wondered, not for the first time, if he’d sustained some kind of chest or lung injury in the fight. Nancy had refused any medical attention. FL went on for longer than Shadow had imagined, and it was late by the time he pulled up outside a small, one-story wooden house, it’s windows tightly shuttered on the outskirts of Fort Pierce. Nancy, who had directed him through the last 5 miles, invited him to stay the night. 

Shadow states, he can get a room in a motel. It’s not a problem. Mr Nancy replies, he could do this, and he’d be hurt. Obviously he wouldn’t say anythin’, but he’d be real hurt, real bad. So he better stay here, and he’ll make him a bed up on the couch. Mr Nancy unlocked the hurricane shutters, and pulled open the windows. The house smelled musty and damper and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.

Shadow agreed, reluctantly, to stay the night there, just as he agreed, even more reluctantly, to walk with Nancy to the bar at the end of the road, for just one late-night drink while the house aired out. As they strolled through the muggy Floridian night, Nancy asked, did he see Czerno? The air was alive with whirring palmetto bugs, and the ground crawled with creatures which scuttled and clicked. Mr Nancy lit a cigarillo, and coughed and choked on it. 

Still, he kept right on smoking. Shadow replies, he was gone when he came out of the cave. Nancy states, he’ll have headed home. He’ll be waitin’ for him there, you know. Shadow says, yes. 

They walked in silence to the end of the road. It wasn’t much of a bar, but it was open. Mr. Nancy said, he’ll buy the first beers. Shadow replies, we’re only having one beer, remember. 

Nancy asks, what is he? Some kind of cheapskate? Mr Nancy bought them their first beers, and Shadow bought the 2nd round. He stared in horror as Nancy talked the barman into turning on the karaoke machine, and then watched in fascinated embarrassment as the old man belted his way through, ‘What’s New Pussycat?’ before crooning out a moving, tuneful version of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. He had a fine voice, and by then end of the handful of people still in the bar were cheering and applauding him.

When he came back to Shadow at the bar he was looking brighter. The whites of his eyes were clear, and the gray pallor which had touched his skin was gone, he saying, his turn. Shadow replies, absolutely not, but Nancy ordered more beers and was handing Shadow a stained printout of songs from which to choose, and says, just pick a song he knows the words to. Shadow replies, this isn’t funny. 

The world was starting to swim, a little, but he couldn’t muster the energy to argue, and then Nancy was putting on the backing tape to ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’, and pushing - literally pushing - Shadow up onto the tiny makeshift stage at the end of the bar. Shadow held the mike as if it was probably alive, and then the backing music started and he croaked out the initial ‘Baby…’. Nobody in the bar threw anything in his direction, and it felt good. ‘Can you understand me now?’ His voice was rough but melodic, and rough suited the song just fine. 

‘Sometimes, I feel a little mad. Don’t you know that no one alive can always be an angel…’, and he was still singing it as they walked home through he busy FL night the old man and the young, stumbling and happy. He sang to the crabs and spiders and the palmetto beetles and lizards and the night, ‘I’m just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood’. Nancy showed him to the couch. It was much smaller than Shadow, who decided to sleep on the floor, but by the time he’d finished deciding to sleep on the floor he was already fast asleep, half-sitting, half-lying, on the tiny sofa. 

At first, he didn’t dream. There was just the comforting darkness, and then he saw a fire burning in the darkness and he walked toward it. Without moving his lips, the buffalo man whispered, he did well. Shadow replies, he doesn’t know what he did. 

The buffalo man states, he made peace. He took our words and made them his own. They never understood they were here - and the people who worshiped them were here - because it suits us they’re here, but we can change our minds, and perhaps we will. Shadow asks, is he a god? The buffalo-headed man shook his head. Shadow thought, for a moment, the creature was amused, he saying, he is the land, and if there was more to this dream then Shadow didn’t remember it. 

He heard something sizzling. His head was aching, and there was a pounding behind his eyes. Nancy was already cooking breakfast: a pile of pancakes, sizzling bacon, perfect eggs, and coffee. He looked in the peak of health. 

Shadow states, his head hurts. Nancy replies, he get a good breakfast inside him, he’ll feel like a new man. Shadow says, he’d rather feel like the same man, just with a different head. Nancy replies, eat. 

Shadow ate. Nancy asks, how does he feel now? Shadow replies, like he’s got a headache, only now he’s got food in his stomach and he thinks he’s going to throw up. Nancy says, come with him. 

Beside the sofa, on which Shadow had spent the night, covered with an African blanket, was a trunk, made of some dark wood, which looked like an undersized pirate chest. Nancy undid the padlock, and opened the lid. Inside the trunk there were a number of boxes. Nancy rummaged among the boxes, and says, it’s an ancient African herbal remedy. It’s made of ground willow bark, things like this. 

Shadow asks, like aspirin? Nancy replies, yup. Just like this. From the bottom of the trunk he produced a giant economy-sized bottle of generic aspirin. He unscrewed the top, and shook out a couple of white pills and says, here. 

Shadow says, nice trunk. He took the bitter pills, swallowed them with a glass of water. Nancy says, his son sent it to him. He’s a good boy. He didn’t see him as much as he’d like. Shadow states, he misses Wed. Despite everything he did. He keeps expecting to see him, but he looks up and he’s not there. 

He kept staring at the pirate trunk, and trying to figure out what it reminded him of. He will lose many things. Don’t lose this. Who said this? Nancy asks, he misses him? After what he put him through? Put us all through? 

Shadow replies, yes. He guesses he does. Does he think he’ll be back? Nancy says, he thinks wherever 2 men are gathered together to sell a 3rd man a $20-dollar violin for 10k dollars, he’ll be there in spirit. Shadow replies, yes, but - Nancy interrupts, his expression becoming stony, we should get back into the kitchen. Those pans won’t wash themselves. Nancy washed the pans and dishes.

Shadow dried them, and put them away. Somewhere in there the headache started to ease. They went back into the sitting room. Shadow stared at the old trunk some more, willing himself to remember, then asks, if he doesn’t go to see Czerno, what would happen? 

Nancy replies flatly, he’ll see him. Maybe he’ll find him. Or maybe he’ll bring him to him, but one way or another, he’ll see him. Shadow nodded. Something started to fall into place and he says, hey. Is there a god with an elephant’s head? Nancy says, Ganesh? He’s a Hindu god. He removes obstacles and makes journeys easier. Good cook, too. 

Shadow looked up and says, …it’s in the trunk. He knew it was important, but he didn’t know why. He thought maybe it meant the trunk of the tree, but he wasn’t talking about this at all, was he? Nancy frowned and says, he lost him. Shadow replies, it’s in the trunk. He knew it was true. He didn’t know why it should be true, not quite, but of this he was completely certain. He got to his feet and says, he’s got to go. He’s sorry. Nancy raised an eyebrow and asks, why the hurry? 

Shadow says, because the ice is melting. Shadow was driving a rental, and he came out of the forest slowly about 8:30 in the morning, drove down the hill doing 45 mph, and entered the town of Lakeside 3 weeks after he was certain he’d left it for good. He drove through the city, surprised at how little it’d changed in the last few weeks, which were a lifetime, and he parked halfway down the driveway which led to the lake. Then he got out of the car. 

There were no more ice-fishing huts on the frozen lake any longer, no SUVs, nobody sitting at a fishing hole with a line and a 12-pack. The lake was dark: no longer covered with a blind white layer of snow, how there were reflective patches of water on the surface of the ice, and the water beneath the ice was dark, and the ice itself was clear enough the darkness beneath showed through. The sky was gray, but the icy lake was bleak and empty. Almost empty. There was one car remaining on the ice, parked out on the frozen lake almost beneath the bridge, so anyone driving through the town, anyone crossing the town, couldn’t help but see it. 

It was a dirty green in color; the sort of car people abandon in parking lots, the kind which they just park and leave because it’s just not worth coming back for. It had no engine. It was a symbol of a wager, waiting for the ice to become rotten enough, and soft enough, and dangerous enough to allow the lake to take it forever. There was a chain across the short driveway which led down to the lake, and a warning sign forbidding entrance to people or to vehicles. 

THIN ICE, it said. Beneath it was a hand-painted sequence of pictograms with lines through them: no cars, no pedestrians, no snowmobiles. Danger. Shadow ignored the warnings and scrambled down the bank. 

It was slippery - the snow had already melted, turning the earth to mud under his feet, and the brown grass barely offered traction. He skidded and slid down to the lake and walked, carefully, out onto a short wooden jetty, and from there he stepped down onto the ice. The layer of water on the ice, made up of melted ice and melted snow, was deeper than it’d looked from above, and the ice beneath the water was slicker and more slippery than any skating rink, so Shadow was forced to fight to keep his footing. He splashed through the water, as it covered his boots to the laces and seeped inside. 

Ice water. It numbed where it touched. He felt strangely distant as he trudged across the frozen lake, as if he were watching himself on a movie screen - a movie in which he was the hero, a detective, perhaps: there was a feeling of inevitability, now, as if everything which was going to happen would play itself out, and there was nothing he could’ve done to change a moment of it. He walked toward the klunker, painfully aware the ice was too rotten for this, and the water beneath the ice was as cold as water could be without freezing. 

He felt very exposed, out on the ice alone. He kept walking, and he slipped and slid. Several times he fell. He passed empty beer bottles and cans left to litter the ice, and he passed circular holes cut into the ice, for fishing, holes which hadn’t frozen again, each hold filled with black water. 

The klunker seemed further away than it’d looked from the road. He heard a loud crack from the south of the lake, like a stick breaking, followed by the sound of something, huge thrumming, as if a bass string the size of a lake was vibrating. Massively, the ice creaked and groaned, like an old door protesting being opened. Shadow kept walking, as steadily as he could. 

A sane voice in the back of his mind whispered, this is suicide. Can’t he just let it go? He replies aloud, no. He has to know, and he kept right on walking. He arrived at the klunker, and even before he reached it he knew he’d been right. 

There was a miasma which hung about the car, something which was at the same time a faint, foul smell and was also a bad taste in the back of his throat. He walked around the car, looking inside. The seats were stained, and ripped. The car was obviously empty. 

He tried the doors. They were locked. He tried the trunk. Also locked. He wished he’d brought a crowbar. He made a fist of his hand inside his glove. He counted to 3, then smashed his hand, hard, against the driver’s-side window-glass. His hand hurt. 

The side-window was undamaged. He thought about running at it - he could kick the window in, he was certain, if he didn’t skid and fall on the wet ice, but the last thing he wanted to do was disturb the klunker enough the ice beneath it would crack. He looked at the car. Then he reached for the radio antenna - it was the kind which was meant to go up and down, but which had stopped going down a decade ago, and had remained in the up position ever since - and, with a little waggling, he broke it off at the base.

He took the thin end of the antenna - it had once had a metal button on the end, but was lost in time, and, with strong fingers, he bent it back up into a makeshift hook. Then he rammed the extended metal antenna down between the rubber and the glass of the front window, deep into the mechanism of the door. He fished in the mechanism, twisting, moving, pushing, the metal antenna about until it caught: and then he pulled up. He felt the improvised hook sliding from the lock, uselessly.

He sighed. Fished again, slower, more carefully. He could imagine the ice grumbling beneath his feet as he shifted his weight, and slow… and… He had it. He pulled up on the aerial and the front door locking mechanism popped up. 

Shadow reached down one gloved hand and took the door handle, pressed the button, and pulled. The door didn’t open. He thought, it’s stuck, iced up. This is all. He tugged, sliding on the ice, and suddenly the door of the klunker flew open, ice scattering everywhere. 

The miasma was worse inside the car, a stench of rot and illness. Shadow felt sick. He reached under the dashboard, found the black plastic handle which opened the trunk, and tugged on it, hard. There was a thunk from behind him as the trunk door released. 

Shadow walked out onto the ice, slipped and splashed around the car, holding onto the side of it as he went. He thought,  it’s in the trunk.  The trunk was open an inch. He reached down and opened it the rest of the way, pulling it up. 

The smell was bad, but it could’ve been much worse: the bottom of the trunk was filled with an inch or so of half-melted ice. There was a girl in the trunk. She wore a scarlet snowsuit, now stained, and her mousy hair was long and her mouth was closed, so Shadow couldn’t see the blue rubber-band braces, but he knew they were there. The cold had preserved her, kept her as fresh as if she’d been in a freezer.

Her eyes were wide open, and she looked as if she’d been crying when she died, and the tears which had frozen on her cheeks had still not melted. Her gloves were bright green. Shadow says to Alison McGovern’s corpse, she was here all the time. Every single person who drove over this bridge saw her.

Everyone who drove through the town saw her. The ice fisherman walked past her every day, and nobody knew, and then he realized how foolish this was. Somebody knew. Somebody had put her here. 

He reached into the trunk - to see if he could pull her out. He put his weight on the car, as he leaned in. Perhaps this was what did it. The ice beneath the front wheels went at this moment, perhaps from his movements perhaps not. 

The front of the car lurched downward several feet into the dark water of the lake. Water started to pour into the car through the open driver’s door. Water splashed about Shadow’s ankles, although the ice he stood on was still solid. He looked around urgently, wondering how to get away - and then it was too late, and the ice tipped precipitously, throwing him against the car and the dead girl in the trunk; and the back of the car went down, and Shadow went down with it, into the cold waters of the lake. 

It was 10 past 9 in the morning, on March the 23rd. He took a deep breath before he went under, closing his eyes but the cold of the lake water hit him like a wall, knocking the breath from his body. He tumbled downward into the murky ice water pulled down by the car. He was under the lake, down in the darkness and the cold, weighed down by his clothes and his gloves and his boots, trapped and swathed in his coat, which seemed to have become heavier and bulkier than he could’ve imagined. 

He was falling, still. He tried to push away from the car, but it was pulling him with it, and then there was a bang which he could hear with his whole body, not his ears, and his left foot was wrenched at the ankle, the foot twisted and trapped beneath the car as it settled on the lake bottom, and panic took him. He opened his eyes. He knew it was dark down there: rationally, he knew it was too dark to see anything, but still, he could see; he could see everything. 

He could see Alison McGovern’s white face staring at him from the open trunk. He could see other cars as well - the klunkers of bygone years rotten hulk shapes in the darkness, half-buried in the lake mud, Shadow thought, and what else would they’ve dragged out onto the lake before there were cars? Each one, he knew, without any question, had a dead child in the trunk. There were scores of them down there. 

There were scores of them down there. Each had sat out on the ice, in front of the eyes of the world, all through the cold winter. Each had tumbled into the cold waters of the lake, when the winter was done. This was where they rested: Lemmi Hautala and Jessie Lovat, and Sandy Olsen and Jo Ming and Sarah Lindquist and all the rest of them. 

Down where it was silent and cold… He pulled at his foot. It was stuck fast, and the pressure in his lungs was becoming unbearable. There was a sharp, terrible, hurt in his ears.

He exhaled slowly, and the air bubbled around his face. He thought, soon, soon he’ll have to breathe. Or he’ll choke. He reached down, put both hands around the bumper of the klunker, and pushed, with everything he had, leaning into it. Nothing happened. 

He told himself, it’s only the shell of a car. They took out the engine. This is the heaviest part of the car. He can do it. Just keep pushing. He pushed. Agonizingly slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, the car slipped forward in the mud, and Shadow pulled his foot from he mud beneath the car, and kicked, and tried to push himself out into the cold lake water. He didn’t move. 

He told himself, the coat. It’s the coat. It’s stuck, or caught on something. He pulled his arms from his coat, fumbled with numb fingers at the frozen zipper. Then he pulled both hands on each side of the zipper, felt the coat give and rend. Hastily, he freed himself from its embrace, and pushed upward, away from the car. 

There was a rushing sensation but no sense of up, no sense of down, and he was choking and the pain in his chest and head was too much to bear, so he was certain he was going to have to inhale, to breathe in the cold water, to die, and then his head hit something solid. Ice. He was pushing against the ice on top of the lake. He hammered at it with his fists, but there was no strength left in his arms, nothing to hold on to nothing to push against.  

The world had dissolved into the chill blackness beneath the lake. There was nothing left but cold. He thought, this is ridiculous, and he thought, remembering some old Tony Curtis film he’d seen as a kid, he should roll onto his back and push the ice upward and press his face to it, and find some air, he could breathe again, there’s air there somewhere, but he was just floating and freezing and he could no longer move a muscle, not if his life depended on it, which it did. The cold became bearable. 

Became warm, and he thought, he’s dying. There was anger there this time, a deep fury, and he took the pain and the anger and reached with it, flailed, forced muscles to move which were resigned never to move again. He pushed up with his hand, and felt it scrape the edge of the ice and move up into the air. He flailed for a grip, and felt another hand take his own, and pull. 

His head banged against the ice, his face scraped the underneath of the ice, and then his head was up in the air, and he could see he was coming up through a hole in the ice, and for a moment all he could do was breathe, and let the black lake water run from his nose and his mouth, and blink his eyes, which could see nothing more than a blinding daylight, and shapes, and someone was pulling him, now, forcing him out of the water, saying something about how he’d freeze to death, so come on, man, pull, and Shadow wriggled and shook like a bull seal coming ashore, shaking and coughing and shuddering. He breathed deep gasps of air, stretched flat out on the creaking ice, and even this wouldn’t hold for long, he knew, but it was no good. His thoughts were coming with difficulty, treacle-slow. He tried to say, just leave him, he’ll be fine.

His words were a slur, and everything was drawing to a halt. He just needed to rest for a moment, which was all, just rest, and then he’d get up and move on, for obviously he couldn’t just lie there forever. There was a jerk; water splashed his face. His head was lifted up.

Shadow felt himself being hailed across the ice, sliding on his back across the slick surface, and he wanted to protest, to explain he just needed a little rest - maybe a little sleep, was this asking for so much? - and he’d be just fine. If they just left him alone. He didn’t believe he’d fallen asleep, but he was standing on a vast plain, and there was a man there with the head and shoulders of a buffalo, and a woman with the head of an enormous condor, and there was Whiskey Jack standing between them, looking at him sadly, shaking his head. Whiskey Jack turned and walked slowly away from Shadow.

The Buffalo man walked away beside him. The thunderbird woman also walked, and then she ducked and kicked and she was gliding out into the skies. Shadow felt a sense of loss. He wanted to call to them, to plead with them to come back, not to give up on him, but, everything was becoming formless and devoid of shape: they were gone, and the plains were fading, and everything became void. 

The pain was intense: it was as if every cell in his body, every nerve, was melting and waking and advertising its presence by burning him and hurting him. There was a hand at the back of his head, gripping it by the hair, and another hand beneath his chin. He opened his eyes, expecting to find himself in some kind of hospital. His feet were bare.

He was wearing jeans. He was naked from the waist up. There was steam in the air. He could see a shaving mirror on the wall facing him, and a small basin, and a blue toothbrush in a toothpaste-stained glass. 

Information was processed slowly, one datum at a time. His fingers burned. His toes burned. He started to whimper from the pain. 

A voice he knew said, easy now, Mike. Easy there. He said, or tried to say, what? What’s happening? It sounded strained and strange to his ears. He was in a bathtub. 

The water was hot. He thought the water was up to his neck. The voice was coming from above and behind his head, saying, dumbest thing one can do with a fellow freezing to death is put him in front of a fire. The 2nd dumbest thing one can do is wrap him in blankets - especially if he’s in cold wet clothes already.Blankets insulate him - keep the cold in. 3rd - dumbest thing - and this is his private opinion - is to take the fellow’s blood out, warm it up, and put it back. This is what doctors do these days. Complicated, expensive. Dumb. The smartest, quickest thing one can do is what sailors have done to men overboard for hundreds of years. One puts the fellow in hot water. Not too hot. Just hot. Now, just so he knows, he was basically dead, when he found him on the ice back there. How’s he feeling now, Houdini? Shadow says, it hurts. Everything hurts. He saved his life. 

The reply, he guesses maybe he did, at that. Can he hold his head up on his own now? Shadow says, maybe. The voice states, he’s going to let him go. If he starts sinking below the water he’ll pull him back up again. The hands released their grip on his head. 

He felt himself sliding forward in the bathtub. He put out his hands, pressed them against the sides of the tub, and leaned back. The bathroom was small. The tub was metal, and the enamel was stained and scratched. 

An old man moved into his field of vision. He looked concerned. Hinz asked, feeling better? He just lay back and relax. He’s got the den nice and warm. He tell him when he’s ready, he got a robe he can wear, and he can throw his jeans into the dryer with the rest of his clothes. Sound good, Mike? Shadow says, this isn’t his name. 

Hinz replies, if he says so. The old man’s goblin face twisted into an expression of discomfort. Shadow had no real sense of time: he lay in the bath until the burning stopped and his toes and fingers flexed without real discomfort. Hinz helped Shadow to his feet and let out the warm water. 

Shadow sat on the side of the bath and together they pulled off his jeans. He squeezed, without much difficulty, into a terrycloth robe too small for him, and leaning on the old man, he went through to the den, and flopped down on an ancient sofa. He was tired and weak: deeply fatigued, but alive. A log fire burned in the fireplace. 

A handful of surprised - looking deer heads peered down dustily from around the walls, where they jostled for space with several large varnished fish. Hinz went away with Shadow’s jeans, and from the room next door Shadow could hear a brief pause in the rattle of a clothes dryer, before it resumed. The old man returned with a steaming mug. He says, it’s coffee which is a stimulant, and he splashed a little schnapps into it. Just a little. This is what we always did in the old days. A doctor wouldn’t recommend it. 

Shadow took the coffee with both hands. On the side of the mug was a picture of a mosquito and the message, GIVE BLOOD - VISIT WISCONSIN!! He says, thanks. Hinz replies, it’s what friends are for. One day, he can save his life. For now, forget about it. 

Shadow sipped the coffee and said he thought he was dead. Hinz replies, he was lucky. He was up on the bridge - he’d pretty much figured today was going to be the big day, one gets a feel for it when one gets to his age - so he was up there with his old pocket watch, and he saw him heading out onto the lake. He shouted, but he sure as heck don’t think he coulda heard him. He saw the car go down, and he saw him go down with it, and he thought he’d lost him, so he went out onto the ice. Gave him the heebie jeebies. He must’ve been under the water for the best part of 2 minutes. Then he saw his hand come up through the place where the car went down - it was like seeing a ghost, seeing him there…, he trailed off, then says, we were both damn lucky the ice took our weight as he dragged him back to the shore. Shadow nodded, and tells Hinz, he did a good thing, and the old man beamed all over his goblin face. Somewhere in the house, Shadow heard a door close. 

He sipped his coffee. Now he was able to think clearly, he was starting to ask himself questions. He wondered how an old man, a man half his height and perhaps a 3rd of his weight, had been able to drag him, unconscious across the ice, or get him up the bank to a car. He wondered how Hinz had gotten Shadow into the house and the bath. 

Hinz walked over to the fire, picked up the tongs and placed a thin log, carefully, onto the blazing fire. Shadow asks, does he want to know what he was doing out on the ice? Hinz shrugged, and says, none of his business. Shadow says, he know what he doesn’t understand…, he hesitated, putting his thoughts in order. 

Then says, he doesn’t understand why he saved his life. Hinz replies, well, the way he was brought up, if one sees another fellow in trouble - Shadow interrupts, no. This isn’t what he means. He means, he killed all those kids. Every winter. He was the only one to have figured it out. He must’ve seen him open the trunk. Why didn’t he just let him drown? Hinz tipped his head on one side. He scratched his nose, thoughtfully, rocked back and forth as if he were thinking. 

He says, well, this is a good question. He guesses it’s because he owed a certain party a debt and he’s good for his debts. Shadow asks, Wed? Hinz confirms, this is the fellow. Shadow states, there was a reason he hid him in Lakeside, wasn’t there? There was a reason nobody should’ve been able to find him here. 

Hinz said nothing. He unhooked a heavy black poker from its place on the wall, and he prodded at the fire with it, sending up a cloud of orange sparks and smoke, and says petulantly, this is his home. It’s a good town. Shadow finished his coffee. He put the cup down on the floor.

The effort was exhausting, and asks, how long has he been here? Hinz answers, long enough. Shadow asks, and he made the lake? Hinz peered at him, surprised and says, yes. He made the lake. They were calling it a lake when he got here, but it weren’t nothing more than a spring and a mill-pond and a creek. 

He paused, then said, he figured this country is hell on his kind of folk. It eats us. He didn’t want to be eaten. So he made a deal. He gave them a lake, and he gave them prosperity… Shadow says, and all it cost them was one child every winter. Hinz replies, good kids, shaking his old head, slowly, and continues, they were all good kids. He’d only pick ones he liked. Except for Charlie Nelligan. He was a bad seed, this one. He was, what, 1924? 1925? Yeah. This was the deal. Shadow said, the people of the town. Mabel. Marguerite. Chad Mulligan. Do they know? 

Hinz said nothing. He pulled the poker from the fire: the first 6 inches at the tip glowed a dull orange. Shadow knew the handle of the poker must be too hot to hold, but it didn’t seem to bother Hinz, and he prodded the fire again. He put the poker back into the fire, tip first, and left it there. 

Then he said, they know they live in a good place. While every other town and city in this county, heck, in this part of the state, is crumbling into nothing. They know this. Shadow asks, and this is your doing? Hinz said, this town. He cares for it. Nothing happens here he doesn’t want to happen. He understand this? Nobody comes here he doesn’t want to come here. This was why his father sent him here. He didn’t want him out there in the world, attracting attention. This is all. Shadow says, and he betrayed him. 

Hinz replied, he did no such thing. He was a crook, but he always pays his debts. Shadow said, he doesn’t believe him. Hinz looked offended. One hand tugged at the clump of white hair at his temple, and says, he keeps his word.

Shadow says, no. He doesn’t. Laura came here. She said something was calling her here, and what about the coincidence which brought Sam Black Crow and Audrey Burton here, on the same night? He doesn’t believe in coincidence any more. Sam Black Crow and Audrey Burton. 2 people who both knew who he really was, and there were people out there looking for me. He guesses if one of them failed, there was always the other, and if all of them had failed, who else was on their way to Lakeside, Hinz? My old prison warden, up here for a weekend’s ice-fishing? Laura’s mother? Shadow realized he was angry, and says, he wanted him out of his town. He just didn’t want to have to tell Wed this was what he was doing. In the firelight, Hinz seemed more like a gargoyle than an imp saying, this is a good town. Without his smile he looked waxen and corpse-like, and continues, he could’ve attracted too much attention. Not good for the town. 

Shadow said, he should’ve left him back there on the ice. He should’ve left him in the lake. He opened the trunk of the klunker. Right now Alison is still iced into the trunk, but the ice will melt, and her body’ll float out and up to the surface, and then they’ll go down and look and see what else they can find down there. Find his whole stash of kids. He guesses some of those bodies are pretty well preserved. Hinz reached down and picked up the poker. He made no pretense of stirring the fire with it any longer; he held it like a sword, or a baton, the glowing orange-white tip of it waving in the air. It smoked. 

Shadow was very aware he was next-to-naked, and he was still tired, and clumsy, and far from able to defend himself. Shadow said, he want to kill him? Go ahead. Do it. He’s a dead man anyway. He knows he owns this town - it’s his little world, but if he thinks no one’s going to come looking for him, he’s living in a dream world. It’s over, Hinz. One way or another, it’s done. Hinz pushed himself to his feet, using the poker as a walking stick. The carpet charred and smoked where he rested the red-hot tip as he got up. 

He looked at Shadow and there were tears in his pale blue eyes. He said, he loves this town. He really likes being a cranky old man, and telling his stories and driving Tessie and ice-fishing. Remember what he told him, it’s not the fish he brought home from a days fishing. It’s the peace of mind. He extended the tip of the poker in Shadow’s direction: Shadow could feel the heat of it from a foot away. Hinz said, he could kill him. He could fix it. He’s done it before. He’s not the first to figure it out. Chad Mulligan’s father, he figured it out. He fixed him. He can fix him. 

Shadow said, maybe, but for how long, Hinz? Another year? Another decade? They have computers. They aren’t stupid. They pick up on patterns. Every year a kid’s going to vanish. They’ll come sniffing about here. Just like they’ll come looking for him. Tell him - how old is he? He curled his fingers around the sofa cushion, and prepared to pull it over his head: it’d deflect a first blow. Hinz’s face was expressionless saying, they were giving their children to him before the Romans came to the Black Forest.  He was a god before ever he was a kobold. Shadow replies, maybe it’s time to move on. 

He wondered what a kobold was. Hinz stared at him. Then he took the poker, and pushed the tip of it back into the burning embers and says, maybe it is, at that, but it’s not this simple. What makes him think he can leave this town, even if he wants to, Shadow? He’s a part of this town. He going to make him go, Shadow? He ready to kill him? So he can leave? Shadow looked down at the floor. 

There were still glimmers and sparks in the carpet, where the poker-tip had rested. Hinz followed the look with his own, and crushed the embers out with his foot, twisting. In Shadow’s mind came, unbidden, children, hundreds of them, staring at him with bone-blind eyes, the hair twisting slowly around their faces like fronds of seaweed. They were looking at him reproachfully. 

He knew he was letting them down. He just didn’t know what else to do. Shadow says, he can’t kill him. He saved his life. He shook his head. 

He felt like crap, in every way he could feel like crap. He didn’t feel like a hero or a detective any more - just another fucking sell-out, waving a stern finger at the darkness before turning his back on it. Hinz asked, he want to know a secret? Shadow with a heavy heart, says, sure. 

He was ready to be done with secrets. Hinz says, watch this. Where Hinz had been standing stood a male child, no more than 5 years old. His hair was dark brown, and long. 

He was perfectly naked, save for a worn leather band around his neck. He was pierced with 2 swords, one of them going through his chest, the other entering at his shoulder, with the point coming out beneath the ribcage. Blood flowed through the wounds without stopping and ran down the child’s body to pool and puddle on the floor. The swords looked unimaginably old.

The little boy stared up at Shadow with eyes which held only pain, and Shadow thought to himself, of course. This is as good a way as any other of making a tribal god. He didn’t have to be told. He knew. 

One takes a baby and bring it up in the darkness, letting it see no one, touch no one, and one feeds it well as the years pass, feed it better than any of the village’s other children, and then, 5 winters on, when the night is at its longest, one drags the terrified child out of its hut and into the circle of bonfires, and one pierces it with blades of iron and of bronze. Then one smokes the small body over charcoal fires, until it’s properly dried, and one wraps it in furs and carry it with one from encampment to encampment, deep in the Black Forest, sacrificing animals and children to it making it the luck of the tribe. When, eventually, the thing falls apart from age, one places its fragile bones in a box, and one worships the box, until one day the bones are scattered and forgotten, and the tribes who worshiped the child-god of the box are long gone; and the child-god, the luck of the village, will be barely remembered, save as a ghost or a brownie, a kobold. Shadow wondered which of the people who had come to northern WI a hundred and 50 years ago, a woodcutter, perhaps, or a mapmaker, had crossed the Atlantic with Hinz living in his head, and then the body child was gone, and the blood, and there was only an old man with a fluff of white hair and a goblin smile, his sweater-sleeves still soaked from putting Shadow into the bath which had saved his life. 

The voice came from the doorway of the den, asking, Hinz? Hinz turned. Shadow turned too. Chad said, he came over to tell him, and his voice was strained as he continues, the klunker went through the ice. He saw it had gone down when he drove over this way, and thought he’d come over and let him know in case he’d missed it. 

He was holding his gun. It was pointed at the floor. Shadow says, hey Chad. Chad replies, hey, pal. They sent him a note said he’d died in custody. Heart attack. 

Shadow says, how about that? Seems like he’s dying all over the place. Hinz says, he came down here, Chad. He threatened him. Chad said, no. He didn’t. He’s been here for the last 10 minutes, Hinz. He heard everything he said. About his old man. About the lake. He walked further into the den. 

He didn’t raise the gun, and says, he means, Jesus, Hinz. He can’t drive through this town without seeing this goddamned lake. It’s at the center of everything. So what the hell is he supposed to do? Hinz, a scared old man in a dusty den said, he got to arrest him. He said he was going to kill him. Chad, he’s pleased he’s here. Chad replies, no. He’s not. Hinz sighed. 

He bent down, as if resigned, and he pulled the poker out from the fire. The tip of it was burning bright orange. Chad says, put that down, Hinz. Just put it down slowly, keep his hands in the air where he can see them, and turn and face the wall. There was an expression of pure fear on the old man’s face, and Shadow would’ve felt sorry for him, but he remembered the frozen tears on the cheeks of Alison McGovern, and couldn’t feel anything. 

Hinz didn’t move. He didn’t put down the poker. He didn’t turn to the wall. Shadow was about to reach for Hinz, to try to take the poker away from him, when the old man threw the burning poker at Chad. 

Hinz threw it awkwardly, lobbing it across the room as if for form’s sake, and as he threw it he was already hurrying for the door. The poker glanced off Chad’s left arm. The noise of the shot, in close quarters of the old man’s room, was deafening. One shot to the head, and this was all. 

Chad said, better get his clothes on. His voice was dull and dead. Shadow nodded. He walked to the room next door, opened the door of the clothes dryer and pulled out his clothes. 

The jeans were still damp. He put them on anyway. By the time he got back to the den, fully dressed - except for his coat, which was somewhere deep in the freezing mud of the lake, and his boots, which he couldn’t find - Chad had already hauled several smoldering logs out from the fireplace. Chad said, it’s a bad day for a cop when he has to commit arson, just to cover up a murder. 

Then he looked up at Shadow, and says, he needs boots. Shadow said, he doesn’t know where he put them. Chad says, hell, then says, sorry about this, Hinz, and he picked the old man up by the collar and belt buckle, and he swung him forward, dropped the body with its head resting in the open fireplace. The white hair crackled and flared and the room began to fill with the smell of charring flesh. 

Shadow said, it wasn’t murder. It was self-defense. Chad says flatly, he knows what it was. He had already turned his attention to the smoking logs he had scattered about the room. He pushed one of them to the edge of the sofa, picked up an old copy of the Lakeside News and pulled it into its component pages, which he crumpled up and dropped onto the log. 

The newspaper pages browned and then burst into flame. Chad says, get outside. He opened the windows as they walked out of the house, and he sprang the lock on the front door to lock it before he closed it. Shadow followed him out to the police car in his bare feet. 

Chad opened the front passenger door for him, and Shadow got in and wiped his feet off on the mat. Then he put on his socks, which were pretty much dry by now. Chad said, we can get him some boots at Henning’s Farm and Home. Shadow asks, how much did he hear in there? 

Chad replies, enough, then says, too much. They drove to Henning’s Farm and Home in silence. When they got there the police chief said, what size feet? Shadow told him. 

Chad walked into the store. He returned with a pair of thick woolen socks, and a pair of leather farm boots saying, all they had left in his size. Unless he wanted gumboots. He figured he didn’t. Shadow pulled on the socks and the boots. They fitted fine and he says, thanks. 

Chad asks, he got a car? Shadow replies, it’s parked by the road down to the lake. Near the bridge. Chad started the car and pulled out of the Henning’s parking lot. Shadow asks, what happened to Audrey?

Chad replies, day after they took him away, she said she liked him as a friend, but it’d never work out between us, us being family and all, and she went back to Eagle Point. Broke his gosh-darn heart. Shadow says, makes sense, and it wasn’t personal. Hinz didn’t need her here anymore. They drove back past Hinz’s house. A thick plume of white smoke was coming up from the chimney. 

Shadow states, she only came to town because he wanted her here. She was something to help him to get him out of town. He was bringing attention he didn’t need. Chad says, he thought she liked him. They pulled up beside Shadow’s rental car. Shadow asks, what’s he going to do now?

Chad says, he doesn’t know. His normally harassed face was starting to look more alive than it had at any point since Hinz’s den. It also looked more troubled, he continuing, he figures, he’s got a couple of choices. Either he’ll…, and he made a gun of his first 2 fingers, and he put the fingertips into his open mouth, and removed them. He continues, … put a bullet through his brain or he’ll wait another couple days until the ice is mostly gone, and tie a concrete block to his leg and jump off the bridge. Or pills. Sheesh. Maybe he should just drive awhile, out to one of the forests. Take pills out there. He doesn’t want to make one of his guys have to do the clean-up. Leave it for the county, huh?

He sighed, and shook his head. Shadow says, he didn’t kill Hinz, Chad. He died a long time ago, a long way from here. Chad replies, thanks for saying this, Mike, but he killed him. He shot a man in cold blood, and he covered it up, and if he asked him why he did it, why he really did it, he’s darned if he could tell him. Shadow put out a hand, touched Chad on the arm, and said, Hinz owned this town. He doesn’t think he had a lot of choice about what happened back there. He thinks he brought him there. He wanted him to hear what he heard. He set him up. He guesses it was the only way he could leave.

Chad’s miserable expression didn’t change. Shadow could see the police chief had barely heard anything he’d said. He’d killed Hinz and built him a pyre, and now, obeying the last of Hinz’s desire, or simply because it was the only thing he could do to live with himself, he’d commit suicide. Shadow closed his eyes, remembering the place in his head which he’d gone when Wed had told him to make snow: this place which pushed, mind to mind, and he smiled a smile he didn’t feel and he said, Chad. Let it go. 

There was a cloud in the man’s mind, a dark, oppressive cloud, and Shadow could almost see it and, concentrating on it, imagined it fading away like a fog in the morning. He says fiercely, trying to penetrate the cloud, Chad, this town is going to change now. It’s not going to be the only good town in a depressed region any more. It’s going to be a lot more like the rest of this part of the world. There’s going to be a lot more trouble. People out of work. People out of their heads. More people getting hurt. More bad shit going down. They’re going to need a police chief with experience. The town needs him, and then he adds, Marguerite needs him. Something shifted in the storm cloud which filled the man’s head. 

Shadow could feel it change. He pushed then, envisioning Marge Olsen’s practical brown hands and her dark eyes, and her long, long black hair. He pictured the way she tipped her head on one side and half-smiled when she was amused. Shadow says, she’s waiting for him, and he knew it was true as he said it. 

Chad said, Margie?, and at this moment, although he could never tell how he’d done it, and he doubted he could ever do it again, Shadow reached in Chad’s mind, easy as anything, and he plucked the events of this afternoon from it as precisely and dispassionately as a raven picking an eye from roadkill. The creases in Chad’s forehead smoothed, and he blinked, sleepily. Shadow says, go see Margie. It’s been good seeing him, Chad. Take care of himself. Chad yawned, saying, sure. 

A message crackled over the police radio, and Chad reached out for the handset. Shadow got out of the car. Shadow walked over to his rental car. He could see the gray flatness of the lake at the center of the town. 

He thought of the dead children who waited at the bottom of the water. Soon, Alison would float to the surface… As Shadow drove past Hinz’s place he could see the plume of smoke had already turned into a blaze. He could hear a siren wail. 

He drove south, heading for Hwy 51. He was on his way to keep his final appointment, but before this, he thought, he’d stop off in Madison, for one last goodbye. Best of everything, Samantha Black Crow liked closing up the Coffee House at night. It was a perfectly calming thing to do: it gave her a feeling she was putting order back into the world.

She’d put on an Indigo Girls CD, and she’d do her final chores of the night at her own pace and in her own way. First, she’d clean the espresso machine. Then she’d do the final round, ensuring any messed cups or plates were deposited back in the kitchen, and the newspapers which were always scattered around the Coffee House by the end of each day were collected together and piled neatly by the front door all ready for recycling. She lived the Coffee House. 

She’d gone there as a customer for 6 months before she talked Jeff, the manager, into giving her a job. It was a long, winding series of rooms filled with armchairs and sofas and low tables, on a street lined with second-hand bookstores. She covered the leftover slices of cheesecake and put them in to the large fridge for the ight, then she took a cloth and wiped the last of the crumbs away. She enjoyed being alone.

As she worked she’d sing along with the Indigo Girls. Sometimes she’d break into a dance for a step or to, before catching herself, and stopping, smiling wryly at herself. A tapping on the window jerked her attention from her chores back to the real world. She went to the door, opened it, to admit a woman of about Sam’s age, with pigtailed magenta hair. 

Her name was Natalie, who says, hello. She went up on tiptoes and kissed Sam, depositing the kiss snugly between Sam’s cheek and the corner of her mouth. One can say a lot of things with a kiss like this, she asking, she done? Sam replies, nearly. 

Nat asks, she want to see a movie? Sam says, sure. Love to. She’s got a good 5 minutes left here, though. Why doesn’t she sit and read the Onion? Nat replies, she saw this week’s already. She sat on a chair near the door, ruffled through the pile of newspapers put aside for recycling until she found something, and she read it, while Sam bagged up the last of the money in the til and put it in the safe.

They’d been sleeping together for a week now. Sam wondered if this was it, the relationship she’d been waiting for all her life. She told herself it was just brain chemicals and pheromones which made her happy when she saw Nat, and perhaps this was what it was; still, all she knew for sure was she smiled when she saw Nat, and when they were together she felt comfortable and comforted. Nat said, this paper has another one of those articles in it. ’Is America Changing?’ 

Sam asks, well, is it? Nat replies, they don’t say. They say, maybe it is, but they don’t know how and they don’t know why, and maybe it isn’t happening at all. Sam smiled broadly, and said, well this covers every option, doesn’t it? Nat says, she guesses, her brow creased and she went back to her newspaper. 

Sam washed the dishcloth and folded it, then says, she thinks it’s just this, despite the gov’t and whatever, everything just feels suddenly good right now. Maybe it’s just spring coming a littler early. It was a long winter, and she’s glad it’s over. Nat replies, her, too. A pause, then says, it says in the article lots of people have been reporting weird dreams. She hasn’t really had any weird dreams. Nothing weirder than normal. Sam looked around to see if there was anything she’d missed.

Nope. It was a good job well done. She took off her apron, hung it back in the kitchen. Then she came back and started to turn off the lights. 

She says, she’s had some weird dreams recently. They got weird enough she actually started to keep a dream journal. They seem to mean so much, while she’s dreaming them. She writes them down when she wakes up, and then when she reads them they don’t mean anything at all. 

She put on her street coat, and her one-size-fits all gloves. Nat said, she did some dream work. Nat had done a little of everything, from arcane self-defense disciplines and sweat lodges to Feng shui and jazz dancing, she saying, tell her. She’ll tell her what they mean. 

Sam replies, ok. She unlocked the door and turned the last of the lights off. She let Nat out, and she walked out onto the street and locked the door to the Coffee House fairly behind her, and says, sometimes she has been dreaming of people who fell from the sky. Sometimes she’s underground, talking to a woman with a buffalo head, and sometimes she dreams about this guy she kissed once in a bar. 

Nat made a noise and says, something she should’ve told her about? Sam replies, maybe, but not like this. It was a Fuck-off Kiss. Nat asks, she was telling him to fuck off? Sam says, no, she was telling everyone else they could fuck off. She had to be there, she guesses. 

Nat’s shoes clicked down the sidewalk. Sam padded on next to her, and says, he owns her car. Nat asks, this purple thing she got at her sisters? Sam agrees, yup. 

Nat asks, what happened to him? Why doesn’t he want his car? Sam says, she doesn’t know. Maybe he’s in prison. Maybe he’s dead. Nat asks, dead? Sam says, she guesses, hesitates, then continues a few week’s back, she was certain he was dead. ESP. Or whatever. Like, she knew, but then, she started to think maybe he wasn’t. She doesn’t know. She guesses her ESP isn’t that hot. 

Nat says, how long is she going to keep his car? Sam states, until someone comes for it. She thinks it’s what he would’ve wanted. Nat looked at Sam, then she looked again. Then says, where did she get those from? 

Sam asks, what? Nat replies, the flowers. The ones she’s holding, Sam where did they come from? Did she have them when we left the Coffee House? She would’ve seen them. Sam looked down. Then she grinned, and says, she’s so sweet. She should’ve said something when she gave them to her, shouldn’t she? They’re lovely. Thank you so much, but wouldn’t red have been more appropriate? 

They were roses, their stems wrapped in paper. 6 of them, and white. Nat, her lips firming says, she didn’t give them to her, and neither of them said another word until they reached the movie theater. When she got home that night Sam put the roses in an improvised vase. 

Later, she cast them in bronze, and she kept to herself the tale of how she got them, although she told Caroline, who came after Nat, the story of the ghost-roses one night when they were both very drunk, and Caroline agreed with Sam it was a really, really strange and spooky - story, and, deep down, didn’t actually believe a word of it so that was all right. Shadow had parked near the capital building, and walked slowly around the square, stretching his legs after the long drive. His clothes were uncomfortable, although they’d dried on his body, and the new boots were still tight. He passed a payphone. 

He called info, and they gave him the number. No, he was told. She isn’t here. She’s not back, yet. She’s probably still at the Coffee House. He stopped on the way to the Coffee House to buy flowers. He found the Coffee House, then he crossed the road and stood in the doorway of a used bookstore, and waited, and watched. The place closed at 8, and at 10 past 8 Shadow saw Sam Black Crow walk out of the Coffee House in the company of a smaller woman whose pigtailed hair was a peculiar shade of red.

They were holding hands tightly, as if simply holding hands could keep their world at bay, and they were talking - or rather, Sam was doing most of the talking while her friend listened. Shadow wondered what Sam was saying. She smiled as she talked. The 2 women crossed the road, and they walked past the place where Shadow was standing. 

The pigtailed girl passed with in a foot of him; he could’ve reached out and touched her, and they didn’t see him at all. He watched them walking away from him down the street, and felt a pang, like a minor chord being played inside him. It’d been a good kiss, Shadow reflected, but Sam had never looked at him the way she was looking at the pigtailed girl and she never would. He said under his breath as Sam walked away from him, what the hell. We’ll always have Peru, and El Paso. We’ll always have that. 

Then he ran after her, and put the flowers into Sam’s hands. He hurried away, so she couldn’t give them back. Then he walked up the hill back to his car, and he took Hwy 90 south to Chicago. He drove at or slightly under the speed limit. 

It was the last thing he had to do. He was in no hurry. He spent the night in a Motel 6. He got up the next morning, and he realized his clothes still smelled like the bottom of the lake. 

He put them on anyway. He figured he wouldn’t need them much longer. Shadow paid his bill. He drove to the brownstone apartment building. 

He found it without any difficulty. It was smaller than he remembered. He walked up the stairs steadily, not fast, this would’ve meant he was eager to go to his death, and not slow, this would’ve meant he was scared. Someone had cleaned the stairwell:the black garbage bags had gone.

The place smelled of the chlorine-smell of bleach, no longer of rotting veggies. The red-painted door at the top of the stairs was wide open: the smell of old meals hung in the air. Shadow hesitated, then he pressed the doorbell. A woman’s voice called, she come!, and, a dwarf-small and dazzlingly blonde, Utrennyaya came out of the kitchen and bustled towards him, wiping her hands on her apron. 

She looked different, Shadow realized. She looked happy. Her cheeks were rouged red, and there was a sparkle in her old eyes. When she saw him her mouth became an O and she called out, Shadow? He came back to us?, and she hurried toward him with her arms outstretched. 

He bent down and embraced her, and she kissed his cheek, and says, so good to see him! Now, he must go away! Shadow stepped into the apartment. All the doors in the apt (except, unsurprisingly, Poluno’s) were wide open, and all the windows he could see were open as well. A gentle breeze blew fitfully through the corridor. 

He says to Utrenn, she’s spring cleaning. She told him, we have a guest coming. Now, he must go away. First, he want coffee? Shadow replies, he came to see Czerno. It’s time. Utrenn shook her head violently and says, no, no. He doesn’t want to see him. Not a good idea. 

Shadow says, he knows, but she knew, the only thing he’s really learned about dealing with gods is if one makes a deal, one keeps it. They get to break all the rules they want. We don’t. Even if he tried to walk out of here, his feet would just bring hm back. She pushed up her bottom lip, then said, is true, but go today. Come back tomorrow. He’ll be gone then. A woman’s voice called, who is it?, from further down the corridor, Zorya Utrenn, to who is she talking? This mattress, she cannot turn on her own, she knows. Shadow walked down the corridor, and said, Good morning Vechern. Can he help?, which made the woman in the room squeak with surprise and drop her corner of the mattress. 

The bedroom was thick with dust: it covered every surface, the wood and the glass, and motes of it floated and danced through the beams of sunshine coming through the open window disturbed by occasional breezes and the lazy flapping of the yellowed lace curtains. He remembered this room. This was the room they had given to Wed, that night. Belebog’s room. 

Vechern eyed him uncertainly, and says, the mattress. It needs to be turned. Shadow says, not a problem. He reached out and took the mattress, lifted it with ease and turned it over. It was an old wooden bed, and the feather mattress weighed almost as much as a man. 

Dust flew and swirled as the mattress went down. Vechern asked, why is he here? It wasn’t a friendly question, the way she asked it. Shadow replies, he’s here because back in December a long man played a game of checkers with an old god and he lost.

The old woman’s gray hair was up on the top of her head in a tight bun. She pursed her lips and says, come back tomorrow. He replies simply, he can’t. She states, is his funeral. Now, he go and sit down. Utrenn will bring him coffee. Czerno will be back soon. 

Shadow walked along the corridor to the sitting room. It was just as he remembered, although now the window was open. The gray cat slept on the arm of the sofa. It opened an eye as Shadow came in and then, unimpressed, it went back to sleep. 

This was where he’d played checkers with Czerno; this was where he’d wagered his life to get the old man to join them on Wed’s last doomed grift. The fresh air came in through the open window, blowing the stale air away. Utrenn came in with a red wooden tray. A small enameled cup of steaming black coffee sat on the tray, beside a saucer filled with small chocolate -chip cookies. 

She put it down on the table in front of him. He says, he saw Poluno again. She came to him under the world, and she gave him the moon to light his way, and she took something from him, but he doesn’t remember what. Utrenn says, she likes him. She dreams so much, and she guards us all. She’s so brave. Shadow asks, where’s Czerno? 

The reply, he says the spring-cleaning makes him uncomfortable. He goes out to buy newspaper, sit in the park. Buy cigarettes. Perhaps he will not come back today. He doesn’t have to wait. Why doesn’t het he go? Come back tomorrow. Shadow replies, he’ll wait. This was no geas, forcing him to wait, he knew this. This was him. It was one last thing which needed to happen, and if it was the last thing which happened, well, he was going there of his own volition. After this there would be no more obligations, no more mysteries, no more ghosts. He sipped his hot coffee, as black and sweet as he remembered. He heard a deep male voice in the corridor, and he sat up straighter.

He was pleased to see his hand wasn’t trembling. The door opened, and Czerno says, Shadow? Shadow replies, hi. He stayed sitting down. 

Czerno walked into the room. He was carrying a folded copy of the Chicago Sun-Times, which he put down on the coffee table. He stared at Shadow, then he put his hand out, tentatively. The 2 men shook hands. 

Shadow said, he came. Our deal. He came through with his part of it. This is his part. Czerno nodded. His brow creased. The sunlight glinted on his gray hair and mustache, making them appear almost golden, and says, is… He frowned, says, is not… He broke off, then says, maybe he should go. Is not a good time. 

Shadow says, take as long as he needs. He’s ready. Czerno sighed and says, he is a very stupid boy. He know this? Shadow replies, he guesses. Czerno says, he is a stupid boy, and on the mountaintop, he did a very good thing. 

Shadow replies, he did what he had to do. Czerno states, perhaps. Czerno walked to the old wooden sideboard, and, bending down, pulled an attaché case from underneath it. He flipped the catches on the case. 

Each one sprang back with a satisfying thump. He opened the case. He took a hammer out, and hefted it, experimentally. The hammer looked like a scaled down sledgehammer; its wooden haft was stained. 

Then he stood up. He said, he owes him much. More than he knew, because of him, things are changing. This is springtime. The true spring. Shadow replies, he knows what he did. He didn’t have a lot of choice. Czerno nodded. 

There was a look in his eyes which Shadow didn’t remember seeing before, and asks, did he ever tell him about his brother? Shadow asks, Bielebog? Shadow walks to the center of the ash-stained carpet. He went down on his knees, and continues, he said he hadn’t seen him in a long time. 

The old man says, raising the hammer, yes. It has been a long winter, boy. A very long winter, but the winter is ending, now, and he shook his head, slowly, as if he were remembering something, and he said, close his eyes. Shadow closed his eyes, and raised his head, and he waited. The head of the sledgehammer was cold, icy cold, and it touched his forehead as gently as a kiss. Czerno says, Pock! There. Is done. 

There was a smile on his face which Shadow had never seen before, an easy, comfortable smile, like sunshine on a summer’s day. The old man walked over to the case, and he put the hammer away, and closed the bag, and pushed it back under the sideboard. Shadow asked, Czerno? Then says, Is he Czerno? The old man said, yes. For today. By tomorrow, it will all be Bielebog, but today, is still Czerno. 

Shadow asks, then why? Why didn’t he kill him when he could? The old man took out an unfiltered cigarette from a pack in his pocket. He took a large box of matches from the mantelpiece and lit the cigarette with a match. He seemed deep in thought and says, after sometime, because, there’s blood, but there’s also gratitude, and it has been a long, long winter. 

Shadow got to his feet. There were dusty patches on the knees of his jeans, where he’d knelt, and he brushed the dust away, and says, thanks. The old man says, he’s welcome. Next time he wants to play checkers, he knows where to find him. This time, he play white. Shadow said, thanks. Maybe he will, but not for a while. 

He looked into the old man’s twinkling eyes, and he wondered if they had always been this cornflower shade of blue. They shook hands, and neither of them said goodbye. Shadow kissed Utrenn on the cheek on his way out, and he kissed Vechern on the back of her hand, and he took the stairs out of this place to at a time. 

Postscript

Reykjavik in Iceland is a strange city, even for those who have seen many strange cities. It’s a volcanic city - the heat for the city comes from deep underground. There are tourists, but not as many of them as one might expect, not even in early July. The sun was shining, as it had shone for weeks now: it ceased shining for an hour or so in the small hours. 

There’d be a dusky dawn of sorts between 2 and 3 in the morning, and then the day would begin once more. The big tourist had walked most of Reykjavik this morning, listening to people talk in a language which had changed little in a thousand years. The natives here could read the ancient sagas as easily as they could read a newspaper. There was a sense of continuity on this island which scared him, and he found desperately reassuring. 

He was very tired: the unending daylight had made sleep almost impossible, and he had sat in his hotel room through the whole long nightless night alternately reading a guidebook and Bleak House, a novel he’d bought in an airport in the last few weeks, but which airport he could no loner remember. Sometimes, he’d stared out of the window. Finally the clock as well as the sun proclaimed it morning. He bought a bar of chocolate at one of the many candy stores, walked the sidewalk, occasionally finding himself reminded of the volcanic nature of Iceland: he would turn a corner and notice, for a moment, a sulfurous quality to the air. 

It put him in mind not of Hades but of rotten eggs. Many of the women he passed were very beautiful: slender and pale. The kind of women which Wed had liked. Shadow wondered what could’ve attracted Wed to Shadow’s mother, who’d been beautiful but had been neither of those things.

Shadow smiled at the pretty women, because they made him feel pleasantly male, and he smiled at the other women too, because he was having a good time. He wasn’t sure when he became aware he was being observed. Somewhere on his walk through Reykjavik he  became certain someone was watching him. He would turn, from time to time, trying to get a glimpse of who it was, and he’d stare into store windows and out at the reflected street behind him, but he saw no one out of the ordinary, no one who seemed to be observing him. 

He went into a small restaurant, where he ate smoked puffin and cloudberries and arctic char and boiled potatoes, and he drank Coca-Cola, which tasted sweeter, more sugary than he remembered it tasting back in the States. The waiter brought his bill - the meal was more expensive than Shadow had expected, but this seemed to be true of meals in every place on Shadow’s wandering. As the waiter put the bill down on the table, he said, excuse me. He is American? Shadow replies, yes. 

The waiter states, then, happy Fourth of July. He looked pleased with himself. Shadow hadn’t realized it was the 4th. Independence Day. Yes. 

He liked the idea of independence. He left the money and a tip on the table, and walked outside. There was a cool breeze coming in off the Atlantic, and he buttoned up his coat. He sat down on a grassy bank and looked at the city, which surrounded him and thought, one day he’d have to go home, and one day he’d have to make a home to go back to.

He wondered whether home was a thing which happened to a place after a while, or if it was something one found in the end, if one simply walked and waited and willed it long enough. He pulled out his book. An old man came striding across the hillside toward him: he wore a dark gray cloak, ragged at the bottom, as if he’d done a lot of traveling, and he wore a broad-brimmed blue hat, with a seagull feather, tucked into the band, at a jaunty angle. He looked like an aging hippie, thought Shadow.

Or a long-retired gunfighter. The old man was ridiculously tall. The man squatted beside Shadow on the hillside. He nodded, curtly, to Shadow. 

He had a piratical black eye patch over one eye, and a jutting whole chin-beard. Shadow wondered if the man was going to hit him up for a cigarette. The old man said, hvernig gengur? Manst pu eftir mer? Shadow replies, he’s sorry. He doesn’t speak Icelandic. 

Then he said, awkwardly, the phrase he’d learned from his phrase book in the daylight of the small hours of this morning, eg talabara ensku. I speak only English. American. The old man nodded slowly and said, his people went from here to America a long time ago. They went there, and then they returned to Iceland. They said it was a good place for men, but a bad place for gods, and without their gods they felt too… alone. His English was fluent, but the pauses and the beats of the sentences were strange. Shadow looked at him: close-up, the man seemed older than Shadow had imagined possible. 

His skin was lined with tiny wrinkles and cracks, like the cracks in granite. The old man said, he does know him, boy. Shadow asks, he does? The man replies, he and him, we’ve walked the same path. He also hung on the tree for 9 days, a sacrifice of himself to himself. He is the lord of the Aes. He is the god of the gallows. 

Shadow states, he is Odin. The man nodded thoughtfully, as if weighing up the name and says, they call him many things, but, yes, he is Odin, Bor’s son. Shadow says, he saw him die. He stood vigil for his body. He tried to destroy so much, for power. He’d have sacrificed so much for himself. He did this. Odin replies, he did not do this. 

Shadow says, Wed did. He was him. Odin states, he was him, yes, but he is not him. The man scratched the side of his nose. His gull-feather bobbed. 

The Lord of the Gallows asks, will he go back? To America? Shadow says, nothing to go back for, and as he said it he knew it was a lie. The old man says, thing’s wait for him there, but they’ll wait until he returns. A white butterfly flew crookedly past them. 

Shadow said nothing. He had enough of gods and their ways to last him several lifetimes. He’d take the bus to the airport, he decided, and change his ticket. Get a plane to somewhere he’d never been. 

He’d keep moving. Shadow says, hey. He has something for him. His hand dipped into his pocket, and palmed the object he needed and says, hold his hand out. Odin looked at him strangely and seriously. 

Then he shrugged, and extended his right hand, palm down. Shadow reached over and turned it so the palm was upward. He opened his own hands, showed them one after the other, to be completely empty. Then he pushed the glass eye into the leathery palm of the old man’s hand and left it there. 

Odin asks, how did he do this? Shadow without smiling, says, magic. The old man grinned and laughed and clapped his hands together. He looked at the eye, holding it between finger and thumb, and nodded as if he knew exactly what it was, and then he slipped it into a leather bag which hung by his waist, and says, Takk kærlega. He shall take care of this. 

Shadow replies, he’s welcome. He stood up, brushed the grass from his jeans. He closed the book, and put it back into the side pocket of his backpack. The Lord of Asgard says with an imperious motion of his hand, his voice deep and commanding, again. More. Do again. 

Shadow replies, them people. They’re never satisfied. Ok. This is one he learned from a guy who’s dead now. He reached into nowhere, and took a gold coin from the air. It was a normal sort of gold coin. It couldn’t bring back the dead or heal the sick, but it was a gold coin sure enough, and Shadow says, and this is all there is, displaying it between finger and thumb, saying, this is all she wrote. 

He tossed the coin into the air with a flick of his thumb. It spun golden at the top of its arc, in the sunlight, and it glittered and glinted and hung there in the mid-summer sky as if it was never going to come down. Maybe it never would. Shadow didn’t wait to see. He walked away and he kept on walking. 

Appendix - Gaiman had been looking forward to writing the meeting of Shadow and Jesus for most of the book: he couldn’t write about America without mentioning Jesus, after all. He’s part of the warp and the weft of the country. And then he wrote their first scene together in CH 15, and it didn’t work for him; he felt like he was alluding to something which he couldn’t simply mention in passing and then move on from. It was too big. So he took it out again. He nearly put it back in, assembling this author’s preferred text. Actually, he did put it back in, and then took it out again, and put it here. We can read it. He’s just not sure it’s necessarily part of American Gods. Consider it an apocryphal scene, perhaps. One day, Shadow will come back to America. There are som extremely interesting conversations awaiting him…

People were walking around beside him, in his mind or out of it. Some people he seemed to recognize, others were strangers. Someone says to him, passing him a drink, and what’s a stranger but a friend one hasn’t met yet? He took the drink, walked with the person down a light brown corridor. 

They were in a Spanish-style building, and they moved from adobe corridor to open courtyard to corridor once more, while the sun beat down on the water gardens and the fountains. Shadow says, it might be an enemy he’s not met yet too. The man replies, bleak, Shadow, very bleak. Shadow sipped his drink. 

It was a brackish red wine and he says, it’s been a bleak few months. It’s been a bleak few years. The man was slender, tanned, of medium height, and he looked up at Shadow with a gentle, empathetic smile, and asks, how’s the vigil going, Shadow? Shadow asks, the tree? Shadow had forgotten he was hanging from the silver tree. 

He wondered where else he’d forgotten, and says, it hurts. The man replies, suffering is sometimes cleansing. His clothes were casual, but expensive, then continues, it can purify. Shadow says, it can also fuck one up. 

The man led Shadow into a vast office. There was no desk in there, though, and the man asks, has he thought about what it means to be a god? He had a beard and a baseball cap, continuing, it means one gives up one’s mortal existence to become a meme: something which lives forever in people’s minds, like the tune of a nursery rhyme. It means everyone gets to recreate him in their own minds. 

One barely has his own identity any more. Instead, he’s a thousand aspects of what people need him to be, and everyone wants something different from him. Nothing is fixed, nothing is stable. Shadow sat in a comfortable leather chair, by the window. 

The man sat on the enormous sofa. Shadow says, great place he’s got here. The man replies, thanks. Be honest now how’s the wine. Shadow hesitated and says, kind of sour he’s afraid. 

The man replies, sorry. This is the trouble with wine. Ok wine he can do easily, but  good wine, let alone great wine… well, one’s got weather, soil acidity, rainfall, even which side of a hill the grapes are grown on. Don’t get him started on vintages… Shadow says, it’s fine, really, and swallowed the rest of the wine in one long gulp. He could feel it burning in his empty stomach, feel the bubbles of drunkenness rising at the back of his head. His friend says, and then this whole deal of new gods, old gods. He ask him, he welcomes new gods. Bring them on. The god of the guns. The god of bombs. All the gods of ignorance and intolerance, of self-righteousness, idiocy and blame. All the stuff they try and land him with. Take a lot of the weight off his shoulders.

He sighed. Shadow says, but he’s so successful. Look at this place. He gestured, indicating the paintings on the walls, the hardwood floor, the fountain in the courtyard below them. His friend nodded and said, it has a cost. Like he said. He has to be all things to all people. Pretty soon, he’s spread so thin he’s hardly there at all. It’s not good. 

He reached out one call used hand - the fingers were etched with old chisel scars - and squeezed Shadow’s hand and says, he knows, he knows. He should count his blessings, and one of those blessings is getting time just to meet him like this, and to talk. It’s great he was able to make it. Really great. Don’t be a stranger now. Shadow replies, no. He’ll just be a friend he’s not met yet. The man with the beard says, funny guy. The squirrel chattered in Shadow’s ear, ratatosk, ratatosk. He could taste the bitter wine still, in his mouth and the back of his throat, and it was almost dark.

Acknowledgments: It’s been a long book, and a long journey, and Gaiman owes many people a great deal. Mrs Hawley lent him her FL house to write in, and all he had to do in return was scare away the vultures. She lent him her Irish house to finish it in and cautioned him not to scare away the ghosts. He thanks the Hawleys for their kindness and generosity. 

Jon and Jane lent him their house and hammock to write in, and all he had to do was fish the occasional peculiar Floridian beastie out of the lizard pool. He’s very grateful to them all. Pratchett helped unlock a knotty plot point. He takes credit for any mistakes made not being from the people he inquired from. 

Dianna Wynne Jones (Howl’s Moving Castle) warned him what kind of book this was, and the perils he risked writing it, and she’s been right on every count so far. (I wonder how she meant this then?) Gaiman lists a couple bands he listened to during the writing as well as mentioning if wanting to contact House on the Rock for a tape or CD of the music including the Mikado machine and of the World’s Largest Carousel providing address and phone number. Lastly and rightly of course, thanks his family last who were patient during the writing as they put up with him going away to write and find America - which turned out, when he eventually found it, to have been in America all along. (This was word for word with exception of third person retelling.)

Interview with Gaiman

Which godlike powers would he like to possess? 

He wants to make time stretchier. He’d like much more rubbery days, and wishes he could lean on a week, and sort of push the walls out a bit, and suddenly about 19 extra days would rush in to fill the vacuum. There isn’t enough time, and he winds up just wanting to do things he doesn’t have time for. There are so many things he’d love to do, and he has to put off, or it’s a matter of him choosing, when he’d love to do both and if only time were infinitely stretchy, he could. 

What’s his favorite roadside attraction? 

The House on the Rock actually is real. (Answer is longer) How did he find out about it? He’d seen signs saying THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK, and thought it was very near where he lived, and eventually discovered it was 250 miles away. Same thing happened with Rock City. 

What was his strangest plane journey?

The trouble with plane journeys is one starts folding them all together. He remembers one which wasn’t necessarily his strangest, but had something he’d never seen happen before or since. He’d just been served with a large cup of apple juice and the plane hit an air pocket and dropped several hundred feet. It didn’t both any of us because we were all seat belted in, but his apple juice shot straight out of his cup. 

The cup remained in the same place, but the contents made a slow and incredibly graceful arc across the cabin and landed in a businessman’s lap half an airplane away. He was with Dave McKean at the time on a Mr Punch signing tour and we tried to pretend it wasn’t us. At least they knew we hadn’t actually thrown it, it was the apple juice which made a mad leap for freedom.

Favorite con artist or con trick?

Ponzi, who created the Ponzi scheme. He sold the Eiffel Tower by going to all the major scrap metal agents in France, presenting himself as a representative of the French government, and explains the Eiffel Tower had become unsafe and they were going to scrap it, but needed somebody who could handle dismantling the tower and the volume of metal this would generate, also implying the government would be so grateful there’d probably be all sorts of decorations for anybody who took it on, and he explained to each of them it was a sealed envelope bid, so there was no possibility for corruption. So they go off to prepare their bids, and he privately got in touch with each, explaining he could be bribed, and each gave vast sums to buy the Eiffel Tower. 

It’s now a few years since AG came out. Does he have any thoughts on the novel? 

Edited response excluding award talk. Americans were terribly nice about it. Nobody actually did the whole ‘How dare you being English, write about America?’, which he thought was kind of them. The thing he found really amusing was about some places in the middle where people are talking, in the way they talk in WI and MN: occasionally he’d have NYers and Los Angelinos accusing him of lapsing into Briticisms there, mostly he thinks because people have no idea what people talk like in the rest of their country. (Take two of the most well-populated and condensed metropolises, one literally the hub of international immigration entrances and ‘melting pot’ cultural communities, and they don’t know a British from middle American accent or colloquialisms? This is the potential lack of travel in the UK mindset, unfortunately rearing its self-absorbed head once more.)

How Dare You? 

Nobody’s asked the question he’s been dreading, so far, the question he’s been hoping no one would ask. So he’s going to ask it himself, and try to answer it, in hopes, like the airline passenger scared of being hijacked who always smuggles her own bombs onto the plane, he’s doing it increases the odds against someone else doing it. (Heavily edited due to practicing a debate which never apparently came)…in its expanded form: How dare he, as an Englishman, try and write a book about America, about American myths and the American soul? How dare he try and write about what makes America special, as a country as a nation, as an idea? And, being English, his immediate impulse is to shrug his shoulders and promise it won’t happen again, but then,  he did dare, and it took an odd sort of hubris to write it. After writing Sandman, he got a similar question all the time, back then, he lives in England. How can he set so much of this story in America? And he’d point out, in media terms, the UK was practically the 51st state. We get American films, watch American TV. In Sandman he created an America which was entirely imaginary, which was much more interesting. (Large chunk edited out) (Talks of being an immigrant to America, and thinks Americans don’t on some level no of the variety of people who live here) Looking back on it, it wasn’t really he’d dared, rather he had no choice.

Gaiman has definitely provided questionable situations, which he gets to live out through his characters dark traits, despite technically being protagonists, but if an author is creator of different sides of personalities, arguably, he’d be able to live out both sides of the light and darkness of his human experience.

Some of the side stories in reference to the holocaust as well as getting stuck on the topic more in depth for a slavery timeline, the former definitely seeming like it was slapped in there, just because, since it initially gives the year, but starts with a nazi doing his job of extermination, which wouldn’t have taken place in the 1700s, and did seem like he knew he’d gotten side-tracked by repeating lines, and if desired to leave in, could have been given it’s own section, but what do I know, I’m no editor.

What also pops to my attention more, is how often young girls are viewed by characters like Wednesday, uncaring of age and using them as a means to his end, and Shadow fantasizing of when they’ll be of age, coming up more than once and overhearing girls talk about sexual situations.

More minor is the peppering of certain language which mixes overly southern for indigenous Americans, who definitely don’t speak the way I’ve ever heard from the few who’ve talked with me, on and off-rez or I’ve heard on podcasts, and terms more leaning to British. This also is noted by Gaiman in the interview portion, but he believing those who had mentioned this to him directly weren’t aware of how American folk in other parts of America speak. Perhaps to British ears, but I fail to see how this doesn’t come off as arrogant and perhaps lazy, but to his credit, they are few and far between, but nonetheless, literarily there.

Even with Whiskey Jack, he has one indigenous god, but for whatever reason has Whiskey Jack stay out of the main story for the most part because he considers himself a ‘culture hero’ and not a god…, if Gaiman had left him his god status, it would still make sense why he would rather stay out of the white man’s war. Granted he got other international gods to play along with the fight, but I suppose this is to these indigenous gods credit, and maybe possible lack of knowledge instead of having to lean on East Indian gods and Polish, Hungarian, etc. WJ did at least fall into the category of one proper personality trait, and if one doesn’t know enough about the gods, don’t misrepresent ‘em, ey? It still would have been cool to see more First Nation gods, but he seemed to miss the point of the stories of the gods, as well, so no harm. Gaiman is no Jamie Delano, who may be a white Brit, but does his research on indigenous gods. 

Jacquel and Ibis had a moment which reminded me of doppelgänger versions of their traits from Neverwhere, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, this post also containing the ever popular hazardously long allegations link to article and corresponding response from Gaiman of mealy mouth response to, at-one-time-everyone-he-was-sleeping-with-was-having-a-good-time, allegations.

He also lacks knowledge of Black culture, which kept rearing it’s head with talk of Easter’s curvy figure and Shadow never seeing a curvaceous woman before, despite his mother being black, and not slender or pale, which is mentioned in the postscript, and I suppose also not having moments with other black folk, or not ever having a good haircut, despite not having kinky hair, according to a description from when he was younger? Jeez, where was Gaiman, in the UK, where he probably has never seen Black barbers in the villages? Or was he still in America and never been to a black barber?…

Gaiman bringing up shopping malls is a bit dated now, and his concept of how tractors are rung up at registers is ignorantly amusing, as if folk have to roll it through the store to a register like a tricycle.

When having Sammi go on a rant about all the hypocritical range she’d be willing to believe in order to have Shadow confide who had killed the 2 agents she called Feds, some of the statements could’ve been saved with researching indigenous knowledge, which I linked within the passage, but all these topics on cosmology can be daunting apparently, Gaiman showing himself in this spiel, since he doesn’t believe in anything but the abyss of nothingness, according to some of what he’s said before; this book is becoming more oxymoronic. Or changing the name of a city, which is from Cherokee origin and making it sound ‘more‘ indigenous to a colonized mind by adding more syllables to the original city name. At least the translation of the name is mostly the same. Another odd choice is making the buffalo-headed man the land instead of leaving it be the Mother.

Then, when Shadow is found out about by Audrey Burton in Lakeside as she’s trying to date her 2nd cousin, who blames him for Laura cheating on Shadow with her husband, at the Buck Stops Here, Gaiman’s classic exaggerated, desperate woman characterization comes back when he needs to show this character must be eye-rollingly annoying and illogical, since she screams for someone to stop him as he’s heading for a table in the back, and not running for the door, which would make more sense for her seeming urgency and reason for her to shout.

Gaiman also has urine take a forefront a few times, which still makes a nod to some allegations. As well as a 14 year old child bride which he decides to bequeath upon a woman, but let an old man impregnate a few times before dropping dead from old age, apparently.

One dream of Shadow’s I left in italic, happens to have a disturbing mention of a slowly suffocating dog, which granted, I’ve read violent and sadistic fiction before, it again only highlighting what kind of mind this is coming from with these allegations. Another spot is when Laura and Town are traveling together and he offers to get her a motel so they can take a bath together which reminded me how we should know about Gaiman and baths, or jacuzzis, now, ey? If having read the laundry list article regarding the babysitter, what a dream sequence nod for himself, regardless of whether this is before or after the event.

When Shadow remembers his mother and their common argument, the bad grammar from someone who worked at multiple embassies around the world is flummoxing. Is this only because she’s black and considered a part of American black culture? Also for whatever reason, when Shadow learns who his father is, Gaiman decides it’s necessary to suppose why Shadow decides not to follow them to see his parents create him…

Then there’s a piece when Shadow goes back to Lakeside and Chad had killed Hinz and built him a pyre, and obeying the last of Hinz’s desire, or simply because it was the only thing he could do to live with himself, he’d commit suicide; which isn’t quite living with himself.

Now, there’s one other piece I came across which started to reveal how, with Gaiman and his humble beginnings with his ‘family’s religion‘ of Scientology, and, not my favorite source, but in Wiki, how he being considered a prodigy within it, due to the young age he began, at one point was an auditor in the organization, started to make me ponder, if in this position it’s meant to allow the person to help others ‘reduce or eliminate’ their neuroses, and we have periodically in this, Wed using his salt on the hand charm to pretty much hypnotize women and hapless barely legals if not actual children, into bed with him, I’m starting think Gaiman may have a similar hook.

There’s a part when Shadow is with Mr Nancy at the end and they’re singing karaoke, and Shadow sings a song called Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood. Jeez, well this felt like it was a valiant attempt at long-term manifestation, but it seems Gaiman misunderstood and makes it seem publicly at least, everyone else has misunderstood him, including the survivors he created.

Again, fairly minor is how much Gaiman enjoys fractions, everything has half this and half the other. Half sitting and half laying down, half stumbling and half walking, etc. 

Using natural charm, getting his lamb into bed, and then going into a script similar to what is shown with Bilquis requesting her partners worship her before she consumes them. One fan from the early ‘90s mentions this script and ritual he’d get caught up in which had nothing to do with her, also being voiced by Wed during a convo.

Upon first time reading of the Author’s Preferred Text and after a good handful of times reading the original edition, this was definitely worth the re-read to note the differences of how I saw it originally being a fascinating view into American Gods and enjoying more the perspective provided and now adding the author’s personality and being reminded of traits and kinks throughout the book made it a much more unique reading experience. I do hope I don’t end up finding out what weird shit other author’s have going on in their personal lives whilst reading their novels when they have at least some talent in being thorough at research, this also changing upon this reading of AG, but again, no one’s perfect when it comes to deadlines and the amount of background one can put into the study of the many subjects they’re writing about. Worth it overall.