"They're suicide bombers," Ketchum said. "How do you attack them back?"
At 1:48, President Bush left Barksdale aboard Air Force One and flew to another base in Nebraska. "More flyin' around," Six-Pack commented.
"How many wars will that shit-for-brains start, do you imagine?" Ketchum asked them.
"Come on, Ketchum--he's the president," the sawyer said.
Ketchum reached out and took the old sawyer's hand--the one with the missing thumb and index finger. "Did you ever make a mistake, Henry?" the veteran river driver asked.
"A couple," Henry answered; everyone could see the two stumps.
"Well, you just wait and see, Henry," Ketchum said. "This ass-wipe in the White House is the wrong man for the job--you just wait and see how many mistakes this penis-breath is going to make! On this mouse turd
's watch, there's going to be a fucking myriad of mistakes!"
"A fuckin' what?" Six-Pack said; she sounded frightened.
"A myriad!" Ketchum shouted.
"An indefinitely large number--countless," Danny explained to Six-Pack.
Six-Pack looked sick, as if the confidence had been kicked out of her. "Maybe you'd like to watch the moose dancin' tonight," she said to Ketchum. "Maybe you and me--and Danny and Carmella, too--could go campin'. It's gonna be a pretty night up by the cookhouse, and between you and me, Ketchum, we could come up with some extra sleepin' bags, couldn't we?"
"Shit," Ketchum said. "There's an undeclared war going on, and you want to watch the moose dancing! Not tonight, Six-Pack," Ketchum told her. "Besides, Danny and I have some serious issues to discuss. I suppose they have a bar and a TV at The Balsams out in Dixville Notch, don't they?" the logger asked Danny.
"I want to go home," Carmella said. "I want to go back to Boston."
"Not tonight," Ketchum said again. "The terrorists aren't going to bomb Boston, Carmella. Two of the planes flew out of Boston. If they were going to attack Boston, they would have done it."
"I'll drive you back to Boston tomorrow," Danny told Carmella; he couldn't look at Six-Pack, who seemed to be in despair.
"Leave me the dog--let me look after Hero," Pam said to Ketchum. "They don't take dogs at The Balsams--and you should stay the night there, Ketchum, 'cause you'll be drinkin'."
"Just so you're paying," Ketchum said to Danny.
"Of course I'm paying," Danny said.
All the dogs had come in the dog door and were huddled in the kitchen. There'd been no more hollering--not since Ketchum had shouted, "A myriad!"--and the dogs were anxious about so many humans standing around in Six-Pack's small kitchen without any yelling.
"Don't get your balls crossed, Hero--I'll be back tomorrow," Ketchum told the bear hound. "You don't have to work at the hospital tonight?" the former river driver asked Six-Pack.
"I can get out of it," she told him disinterestedly. "They like me at the hospital."
"Well, shit--I like you, too," Ketchum told her awkwardly, but Six-Pack didn't say anything; she'd seen her opportunity pass. All Pam could do was position her aching body between the two children (belonging to one of the young women) and that unreliable German shepherd; the dog was just plain bonkers. Six-Pack knew that her odds of preventing the shepherd from biting the kids were far better than the possibility that she could ever persuade Ketchum to live with her again. He'd even offered to pay for her hip replacement--at that fancy fucking hospital near Dartmouth--but Pam speculated that Ketchum's generosity toward her damaged hip had more to do with the logger's infinite regret that he'd not killed the cowboy than it served as a testimony to Ketchum's enduring affection for her.
"Everybody out. I want my kitchen back--everybody out, now," Six-Pack suddenly said; she didn't want to break down in front of a bunch of strangers. All but one of Pam's mutts, as Ketchum called them, sidled out the dog door before Six-Pack could say to them, "Not you." But the dogs were used to the everybody-out command, and they moved more quickly than the two women with young children or old Henry, the former sawyer and double-digit amputee.
Paying no heed to Pam's command, the lunatic German shepherd and Hero stood their ground; the dogs were engaged in a macho standoff, in opposite corners of the kitchen. "No more trouble from you two," Pam said to them, "or I'll beat the livin' shit out of you." But she'd already started to cry, and her voice lacked its customary firepower. The two dogs weren't afraid of Six-Pack anymore; the dogs could sense when a fellow creature was defeated.
--
THE THREE OF THEM WERE RIDING in the bear-fouled truck again--Danny once more in the middle, and Carmella as close to the open passenger-side window as she could get--when Ketchum turned on the radio in the stinking cab. It wasn't yet three o'clock in the afternoon, but Mayor Giuliani was having a press conference. Someone asked the mayor about the number of people killed, and Giuliani answered: "I don't think we want to speculate about that--more than any of us can bear."
"That sounds like a good guess," Danny said.
"And you're thinking about moving back here--isn't that right?" Ketchum asked Danny suddenly. "Didn't I hear you say that there was no real reason for you to stay in Canada--not anymore--and that you were inclined to come back to your own country? Weren't you recently complaining to me that you didn't really feel like a Canadian--and, after all, you were born here, you really are an American, aren't you?"
"I suppose so," Danny answered; the writer knew enough to be careful with Ketchum's line of questioning. "I was born here--I am an American. Becoming a Canadian citizen didn't make me a Canadian," Danny said more assertively.