American Gods (55 page)

Toward the end of the afternoon they stopped, at Czer-nobog’s
request, on the outskirts of Cherryvale, Kansas (pop. 2,464). Czernobog 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.

“Wait here,” said Czernobog.

He walked, alone, to the center of the meadow. He stood
there, in the winds of the end of February, for some time. At first he hung his
head, then he began gesticulating.

“He looks like he’s talking to someone,” said Shadow.

“Ghosts,” said Mr. Nancy. “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.”

Czernobog 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 tooth. “I feel good, now. Ahh. Some things linger, and blood
lingers longest.”

They walked back across the meadow to where they had parked
the VW bus. Czernobog lit a cigarette, but did not cough. ‘They did it with the
hammer,” he said. “Votan, he would talk of the gallows and the spear, but for
me, it is one thing ...” He reached out a nicotine-colored finger and tapped
it, hard, in the center of Shadow’s forehead.

“Please don’t do that,” said Shadow, politely.

“Please don’t do that” mimicked Czernobog. “One day I will
take my hammer and do much worse than that to you, my friend, remember?”

“Yes,” said Shadow. “But if you tap my head again, I’ll
break your hand.”

Czernobog snorted. Then he said, ‘They should be grateful,
the people here. There was such power raised. Even thirty years after they
forced my people interffiding, this land, this very land, gave us the greatest
movie star of all time. She was the greatest there ever was.”

“Judy Garland?” asked Shadow.

Czernobog shook his head curtly.

“He’s talking about Louise Brooks,” said Mr. Nancy.

Shadow decided not to ask who Louise Brooks was. Instead he
said, “So, look, when Wednesday went to talk to them, he did it under a truce.”

“Yes.”

“And now we’re going to get Wednesday’s body from them, as a
truce.”

“Yes.”

“And we know that they want me dead or out of the way.”

“They want all of us dead,” said Nancy.

“So what I don’t get is, why do we think they’ll play fair
this time, when they didn’t for Wednesday?”

“That,” said Czernobog, “is why we are meeting at the
center. Is ...” He frowned. “What is the word for it? The opposite of sacred?”

“Profane,” said Shadow, without thinking.

“No,” said Czernobog. “I mean, 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 are forced to.”

“I don’t know,” said Shadow. “I don’t think there is a word
for it.”

“All of America has it, a little,” said Czernobog. “That is
why we are not welcome here. But the center,” said Czernobog. “The center is
worst. Is like a minefield. We all tread too carefully there to dare break the
truce.”

They had reached the bus. Czernobog patted Shadow’s upper
arm. “You don’t worry,” he said, with gloomy reassurance. “Nobody else is going
to kill you. Nobody but me.”

Shadow found the center of America at evening that 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 black Humvee parked in front of it—it
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 inside 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.

“Big car, tiny dick,” said Mr. Nancy.

“Do you think they’ll even have beds here?” asked Shadow. “It’s
been days since I slept in a bed. This place looks like it’s just waiting to be
demolished.”

“It’s owned by hunters from Texas,” said Mr. Nancy. “Come up
here once a year. Damned if I know 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 did not recognize. She was perfectly made-up,
perfectly coiffed. She reminded him of every newscaster he’d ever seen on
morning television sitting in a studio that didn’t really resemble a living
room.

“Lovely to see you,” she said. “Now, you must be Czernobog.
I’ve heard a lot about you. And you’re Anansi, always up to mischief, eh? You
jolly old man. And you, you must be Shadow. You’ve certainly led us a merry
chase, haven’t you?” A hand took his, pressed it firmly, looked him straight in
the eye. “I’m Media. Good to meet you. I hope we can get this evening’s
business done as pleasantly as possible.”

The main doors opened. “Somehow, Toto,” said the fat kid
Shadow had last seen sitting in a limo, “I don’t believe we’re in Kansas
anymore.”

“We’re in Kansas,” said Mr. Nancy. “I tiiink we must have
drove through most of it today. Damn but this country is flat.”

“This place has no lights, no power, and no hot water,” said
the fat kid. “And, no offense, you people really need the hot water. You just
smell like you’ve been in that bus for a week.”

“I don’t think there’s any need to go there,” said the
woman, smoothly. “We’re all friends here. Come on in. We’ll show you to your
rooms. We took the first four rooms. Your late friend is in the fifth. All the
ones beyond room five are empty—you can take your pick. I’m afraid it’s not the
Four Seasons, but then, what is?’

She opened the door to the motel lobby for them. It smelled
of mildew, of damp and dust and decay.

There was a man sitting in the lobby, in the near darkness. “You
people hungry?” he asked.

“I can always eat,” said Mr. Nancy.

“Driver’s gone out for a sack of hamburgers,” said the man. “He’ll
be back soon.” He looked up. It was too dark to see faces, but he said, “Big
guy. You’re Shadow, huh? The asshole who killed Woody and Stone?”

“No,” said Shadow. “That was someone else. And I know who
you are.” He did. He had been inside the man’s head. “You’re Town. Have you
slept with Wood’s widow yet?”

Mr. Town fell off his chair. In a movie, it would 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 you’re not
prepared to finish.”

Mr. Nancy rested his hand on Shadow’s upper arm. ‘Truce,
remember?” he said. “We’re at the center.”

Mr. Town turned away, leaned over to the counter, and picked
up three keys. “You’re down at the end of the hall,” he said. “Here.”

He handed the keys to Mr. Nancy and walked away, into the
shadows of the corridor. They heard a motel room door open, and they heard it
slam.

Mr. Nancy passed a key to Shadow, another to Czer-nobog. “Is
there a flashlight on the bus?” asked Shadow.

“No,” said Mr. Nancy. “But it’s just dark. You mustn’t be
afraid of the dark.”

“I’m not,” said Shadow. “I’m afraid of the people in the
dark.”

“Dark is good,” said Czernobog. 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. “I will be in room ten,” he told them.
And then he said, “Media. I think I have heard of her. Isn’t she the one who
killed her children?”

“Different woman,” said Mr. Nancy. “Same deal.”

Mr. Nancy was in room 8, and Shadow opposite the two 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 had 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 thatgusted 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 have been a hundred trees, planted in ftvj rows. There were shapes hanging
from the trees. At the ena of the rows was a building that 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 that Shadow could barely approach
it. The wolf padded around the crackling fire.

In place of the wolf a man came out on the other side of the
fire. He was leaning on a tall stick.

“You are in Uppsala, in Sweden,” said the man, in a
familiar, gravelly voice. “About a thousand years ago.”

“Wednesday?” said Shadow.

The man continued to talk, as if Shadow were not there. “First
every year, then, later, when the rot set in, and they became lax, every nine
years, they would sacrifice here. A sacrifice of nines. Each day, for nine
days, they would hang nine 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 that hung from 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 that 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
would kick spasmodically, and it was making a strained whimpering noise as it
dangled from the rope.

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 knifelike cut downward. Steaming entrails tumbled onto
the snow. “I dedicate this death to Odin,” said the man, formally.

“It is only a gesture,” he said, turning back to Shadow. “But
gestures mean everything. The death of one dog symbolizes the death of all
dogs. Nine men they gave to me, 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.”

“I saw you die,” said Shadow.

“In the god business,” said the figure—and now Shadow was
certain it was Wednesday, nobody else had that rasp, that deep cynical joy in
words, “it’s not the death that 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 could not decide whether the dead humans they walked
past were more or less horrifying than the animals: at least the humans had
known the fate they were going to. There was a deep, boozy smell about the men
that suggested that they had been allowed to anesthetize 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 twenty.

“Who am I?” asked Shadow.

“You?” said the man. “You were an opportunity. You were part
of a grand tradition. Although both of us are committed enough to the affair to
die for it. Eh?”

“Who are you?” asked Shadow.

“The hardest part is simply surviving,” said the man. The bonfire—and
Shadow realized with a strange horror that it truly was a bone-fire: rib cages
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. “Three days
of
the tree,
three days in the underworld, three days to find my way back.”

The flames sputtered and flamed too brightly for Shadow to
look at directly. He looked down into the’Markness beneath the trees.

A knock on the door—and now there was moonlight coming in
the window. Shadow sat up with a start. “Dinner’s served,” said Media’s voice.

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 hi holding a
cardboard tray and a paper sack. He wore a long black coat and a peaked
chauffeur’s cap.

“Sorry about the delay,” he said, hoarsely. “I got everybody
the same: a couple of burgers, large fries, large Coke, and apple pie. I’ll eat
mine 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.