American Gods

Whiskey Jack’s face was impassive. “I’m talking to this young man,” he said. “You are beyond help. He is not.” He turned back to Shadow. “You know, you cannot come to me here unless I wish it.”

Shadow realized that he did know this. “Yes.”

“Tell me your dream,” said Whiskey Jack.

Shadow said, “I was climbing a tower of skulls. There were huge birds flying around it. They had lightning in their wings. They were attacking me. The tower fell.”

“Everybody dreams,” said Wednesday. “Can we hit the road?”

“Not everybody dreams of the Wakinyau, the thunderbirds,” said Whiskey Jack. “We felt the echoes of it here.”

“I told you,” said Wednesday. “Jesus.”

“There’s a clutch of thunderbirds in West Virginia,” said Chapman, idly. “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 Kentucky and Tennessee. Course, there was never a great number of them, even at the best of times.”

Whiskey Jack reached out a hand the color of the red clay, and he touched Shadow’s face, gently. His irises were light brown banded with dark brown, and in that face those eyes seemed luminous. “Eyah,” he said. “It’s true. If you hunt the thunderbird you could bring your woman back. But she belongs to the wolf, in the dead places, not walking the land.”

“How do you know?” asked Shadow.

Whiskey Jack’s lips did not move. “What did the Buffalo tell you?”

“To believe.”

“Good advice. Are you going to follow it?”

“Kind of. I guess.” They were talking without words, without mouths, without sound. Shadow wondered if, for the other two men in the room, they were standing, unmoving, for a heartbeat or for a fraction of a heartbeat.

“When you find your tribe, come back and see me,” said Whiskey Jack. “I can help.”

“I shall.”

Whiskey jack lowered his hand. Then he turned to Wednesday. “Are you going to fetch your Ho Chunk?”

“My what?”

“Ho Chunk. It’s what the Winnebago call themselves.”

Wednesday shook his head. “It’s too risky. Retrieving it could be problematic. They’ll be looking for it.”

“Is it stolen?”

Wednesday looked affronted. “Not a bit of it. The papers are in the glove compartment.”

“And the keys?”

“I’ve got them,” said Shadow.

“My nephew, Harry Bluejay, has an ’81 Buick. Why don’t you give me the keys to your camper? You can take his car.”

Wednesday bristled. “What kind of trade is that?”

Whiskey Jack shrugged. “You know how hard it will be to bring back your camper from where you abandoned it? I’m doing you a favor. Take it or leave it. I don’t care.” He closed his knife-wound mouth.

Wednesday looked angry, and then the anger became rue, and he said, “Shadow, give the man the keys to the Winnebago.” Shadow passed the car keys to Whiskey Jack.

“Johnny,” said Whiskey Jack, “will you take these men down to find Harry Bluejay? Tell him I said for him to give them his car.”

“Be my pleasure,” said John Chapman.

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 Wednesday followed him. Whiskey Jack waited in the doorway. “Hey,” he said to Wednesday. “Don’t come back here, you. You are not welcome.”

Wednesday extended his middle finger heavenward. “Rotate on this,” he said affably.

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. “Aren’t you cold?” asked Shadow.

“My wife was Choctaw,” said Chapman.

“And she taught you mystical ways to keep out the cold?”

“Nope. She thought I was crazy,” said Chapman. “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 three men stumbled and slipped 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 said, “She’s dead now, a’course. When she died I guess maybe I went a mite crazy. It could happen to anyone. It could happen to you.” He clapped Shadow on the arm. “By Jesus and Jehosophat, you’re a big man.”

“So they tell me,” said Shadow.

They trudged down that hill for another half an hour, until they reached the gravel road that wound around the base of it, and the three men began to walk along it, toward the cluster of buildings they had seen from high on the hill.

A car slowed and stopped. The woman driving it reached over, wound down the passenger window, and said, “You bozos need a ride?”

“You are very gracious, madam,” said Wednesday. “We’re looking for a Mister Harry Bluejay.”

“He’ll be down at the rec hall,” said the woman. She was in her forties, Shadow guessed. “Get in.”

They got in. Wednesday took the passenger seat, John Chapman and Shadow climbed into the back. Shadow’s legs were too long to sit in the back comfortably, but he did the best he could. The car jolted forward, down the gravel road.