The stew was delicious, and it was very gjfcod apple cider. Shadow forced himself to slow down, to chew his food, not to gulp it, but he was more hungry than he would have believed. He helped himself to a second bowl of the stew and a second glass of the cider.
“Dame Rumor says that you’ve been out talking to all manner of folk, offering them all manner of things. Says you’re takin’ the old folks on the warpath,” said John Chapman. Shadow and Whiskey Jack were washing up, putting the leftover stew into Tupperware bowls. Whiskey Jack put the bowls into the snowdrifts outside his front door, and put a milk crate on top of the place he’d pushed them, so he could find them again.
“I think mat’s a fair and judicious summary of events,” said Wednesday.
“They’ll win,” said Whiskey Jack flatly. “They won already. You lost already. Like the white man and my people. Mostly they won. And when they lost, they made treaties. Then they broke the treaties. So they won again. I’m not fighting for another lost cause.”
“And it’s no use you lookin’ at me,” said John Chapman, “for even if I fought for you—which’n I won’t—I’m no use to you. Mangy rat-tailed bastards jes’ picked me off and clean forgot me.” He stopped. Then he said, “Paul Bunyan.” He shook his head slowly and he said it again. “Paul Bunyan.” Shadow had never heard two such innocuous words made to sound so damning.
“Paul Bunyan?” Shadow said. “What did he ever do?”
“He took up head space,” said Whiskey Jack. He bummed a cigarette from Wednesday and the two men sat and smoked.
“It’s like the idiots who figure that hummingbirds worry about their weight or tooth decay or some such nonsense, maybe they just want to spare hummingbirds the evils of sugar,” explained Wednesday. “So they fill the hummingbird feeders with fucking NutraSweet. The birds come to the feeders and they drink it. Then they die, because their food contains no calories even though their little tummies are full. That’s Paul Bunyan for you. Nobody ever told Paul Bunyan stories. Nobody ever believed in Paul Bunyan. He came staggering out of a New York ad agency in 1910 and filled the nation’s myth stomach with empty calories.”
“I like Paul Bunyan,” said Whiskey Jack. “I went on his ride at the Mall of America, few years back. You see big old Paul Bunyan at the top, then you come crashing down. Splash! He’s okay by me. I don’t mind that he never existed, means he never cut down any trees. Not as good as planting trees though. That’s better.”
“You said a mouthful,” said Johnny Chapman.
Wednesday blew a smoke ring. It hung in the air, dissipating slowly in wisps and curls. “Damn it, Whiskey Jack, that’s not the point and you know it.”
“I’m not going to help you,” said Whiskey Jack. “When you get your ass kicked, you can come back here and if I’m still here I’ll feed you again. You get the best food in the fall.”
Wednesday said, “All the alternatives are worse.”
“You have no idea what the alternatives are,” said Whiskey Jack. Then he looked at Shadow. “You are hunting,” he said. His voice was roughened by wood smoke and cigarettes.
“I’m working,” said Shadow.
Whiskey Jack shook his head. “You are also hunting something,” he said. “There is a debt that you wish to pay.”
Shadow thought of Laura’s blue lips and the blood on her hands, and he nodded.
“Listen. Fox was here first, and his brothe/was the wolf. Fox said, people will live forever. If they die they will not die for long. Wolf said, no, people will die, people must die, all things that live must die, or they will spread and cover the world, and eat all the salmon and thje caribou and the buffalo, eat all the squash and all the 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. You convinced me. 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.”
Wednesday said, “If you won’t play, you won’t play. We’ll be moving on.”
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. “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 thunderbird,” said Whiskey Jack. “We felt the echoes of it here.”
“I told you,” said Wednesday. “Jesus.”