Chapter 7 (p.3)
Shadow ordered the meatloaf, Sam ordered lasagna. Shadow flipped through the newspaper to see if there was anything in it about dead men in a freight train. There wasn't. The only story of interest was on the cover: crows in record numbers were infesting the town. Local farmers wanted to hang dead crows around the town on public buildings to frighten the others away; ornithologists said that it wouldn't work, that the living crows would simply eat the dead ones. The locals were implacable. “When they see the corpses of their friends,” said a spokesman, “they'll know that we don't want them here.”
The food was good, and it came mounded on steaming plates, more than any one person could eat.
“So what's in Cairo?” asked Sam, with her mouth full.
“No idea. I got a message from my boss saying he needs me down there.”
“What do you do?”
“I'm an errand boy.”
She smiled. “Well,” she said, “you aren't Mafia, not looking like that and driving that piece of shit. Why does your car smell like bananas, anyway?”
He shrugged, carried on eating.
Sam narrowed her eyes. “Maybe you're a banana smuggler,” she said. “You haven't asked me what I do yet.”
“I figure you're at school.”
“UW Madison.”
“Where you are undoubtedly studying art history, women's studies, and probably casting your own bronzes. And you probably work in a coffee house to help cover the rent.”
She put down her fork, nostrils flaring, eyes wide. “How the fuck did you do that?”
“What? Now you say, no, actually I'm studying Romance languages and ornithology.”
“So you're saying that was a lucky guess or something?”
“What was?”
She stared at him with dark eyes. “You are one peculiar guy, Mister…I don't know your name.”
“They call me Shadow,” he said.
She twisted her mouth wryly, as if she were tasting something she disliked. She stopped talking, put her head down, finished her lasagna.
“Do you know why it's called Egypt?” asked Shadow, when Sam finished eating.
“Down Cairo way? Yeah. It's in the delta of the Ohio and the Mississippi. Like Cairo in Egypt, in the Nile delta.”
“That makes sense.”
She sat back in her chair, ordered coffee and chocolate cream pie, ran a hand through her black hair. “You married, Mr. Shadow?” And then, as he hesitated, “Gee. I just asked another tricky question, didn't I?”
“They buried her on Thursday,” he said, picking his words with care. “She was killed in a car crash.”
“Oh. God. Jesus. I'm sorry.”
“Me too.”
An awkward pause. “My half-sister lost her kid, my nephew, end of last year. It's rough.”
“Yeah. It is. What did he die of?”
She sipped her coffee. “We don't know. We don't even really know that he's dead. He just vanished. But he was only thirteen. It was the middle of last winter. My sister was pretty broken up about it.”
“Were there any, any clues?” He sounded like a TV cop. He tried again. “Did they suspect foul play?” That sounded worse.
“They suspected my non-custodial asshole brother-in-law, his father. Who was asshole enough to have stolen him away. Probably did. But this is in a little town in the Northwoods. Lovely, sweet, pretty little town where no one ever locks their doors.” She sighed, shook her head. She held her coffee cup in both hands. Then she looked up at him, changing the subject. “How did you know I cast bronzes?”
“Lucky guess. It was just something to say.”
“Are you sure you aren't part Indian?”
“Not that I know. It's possible. I never met my father. I guess my ma would have told me if he was Native American, though. Maybe.”
Again the mouth-twist. Sam gave up halfway through her chocolate cream pie: the slice was half the size of her head. She pushed the plate across the table to Shadow. “You want?” He smiled, said, “Sure,” and finished it off.
The waitress handed them the check, and Shadow paid.
“Thanks,” said Sam.
It was getting colder now. The car coughed a couple of times before it started. Shadow drove back onto the road, and kept going south. “You ever read a guy named Herodotus?” he asked.
“Jesus. What?”
“Herodotus. You ever read his Histories?”
“You know,” she said, dreamily, “I don't get it. I don't get how you talk, or the words you use or anything. One moment you're a big dumb guy, the next you're reading my friggin' mind, and the next we're talking about Herodotus. So no. I have not read Herodotus. I've heard about him. Maybe on NPR. Isn't he the one they call the father of lies?”
“I thought that was the Devil.”
“Yeah, him too. But they were talking about Herodotus saying there were giant ants and gryphons guarding gold mines, and how he made this stuff up.”
“I don'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 little details—like, did you know, in Egypt, if a particularly beautiful girl, or the wife of a lord or whatever, died, they wouldn't send her to the embalmer for three days? They'd let her body spoil in the heat first.”
“Why? Oh, hold on. Okay, I think I know why. Oh, that's disgusting.”
“And there're battles in there, all sorts of normal things. And then there are the gods. Some guy is running back to report on the outcome of a battle and he's running and running, and he sees Pan in a glade. And Pan says, ‘Tell them to build me a temple here.' So he says okay, and runs the rest of the way back. And he reports the battle news, and then says, ‘Oh, and by the way, Pan wants you to build him a temple.' It's really matter-of-fact, you know?”
“So there are stories with gods in them. What are you trying to say? That these guys had hallucinations?”
“No,” said Shadow. “That's not it.”
She chewed a hangnail. “I read some book about brains,” she said. “My roommate had it and she kept waving it around. It was like, how five thousand years ago the lobes of the brain fused and before that 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 just brains.”
“I like my theory better,” said Shadow.
“What's your theory?”
“That back then people used to run into the gods from time to time.”
“Oh.” Silence: only the rattling of the car, the roar of the engine, the growling of the muffler—which did not sound healthy. Then, “Do you think they're still there?”
“Where?”
“Greece. Egypt. The islands. Those places. Do you think if you walked where those people walked you'd see the gods?”
“Maybe. But I don't think people'd know that was what they'd seen.”
“I bet it's like space aliens,” she said. “These days, people see space aliens. Back then they saw gods. Maybe the space aliens come from the right side of the brain.”
“I don't think the gods ever gave rectal probes,” said Shadow. “And they didn't mutilate cattle themselves. They got people to do it for them.”
She chuckled. They drove in silence for a few minutes, and then she said, “Hey, that reminds me of my favorite god story, from Comparative Religion 101. You want to hear it?”
“Sure,” said Shadow.
“Okay. This is one about Odin. The Norse god. You know? There was some Viking king on a Viking ship—this was back in the Viking times, 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. Okay. The wind comes up, and they get to land. So, on land, 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 that 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 thin branch, and they take a reed instead of a spear and poke him with it and go, ‘Okay, you've been hung'—hanged?—whatever—‘you've been sacrificed to Odin. '”
The road curved: Another Town, pop. 300, home of the runner-up to the State Under-12s speed-skating championship, two huge giant economy-sized funeral parlors on each side of the road, and how many funeral parlors do you need, Shadow wondered, when you only have three hundred people…?
“Okay. 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, 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, Mister Shadow.”
“Yes,” said Shadow. “You're not white?”
“I'm a Cherokee,” she said.
“Full-blooded?”
“Nope. Only four pints. My mom was white. My dad was a real reservation Indian. He came out this way, eventually married my mom, had me, then when they split he went back to Oklahoma.”
“He went back to the reservation?”
“No. He borrowed money and opened a Taco Bell knock-off called Taco Bill's. He does okay. He doesn't like me. Says I'm half-breed.”
“I'm sorry.”
“He's a jerk. I'm proud of my Indian blood. It helps pay my college tuition. Hell, one day it'll probably help get me a job, if I can't sell my bronzes.”
“There's always that,” said Shadow.
He stopped in El Paso, IL (pop. 2,500), to let Sam out at a down-at-heel house on the edge of the town. A large wire-framed model of a reindeer covered in twinkling lights stood in the front yard. “You want to come in?” she asked. “My aunt would give you a coffee.”
“No,” he said. “I've got to keep moving.”
She smiled at him, looking suddenly, and for the first time, vulnerable. She patted him on the arm. “You're fucked up, mister. But you're cool.”
“I believe that's what they call the human condition,” said Shadow. “Thanks for the company.”
“No problem,” she said. “If you see any gods on the road to Cairo, you make sure and say hi to them from me.” She got out of the car, and went to the door of the house. She pressed a doorbell and stood there at the door, without looking back. Shadow waited until the door was opened and she was safely inside before he put his foot down and headed back for the highway. He passed through Normal, and Bloomington, and Lawndale.
