David Nickle - Eutopia

“Just don’t hurt her.”

“I won’t do anything ’til daybreak when the light’s right. Not at least. In the meantime, bring me that doctor bag you filched. Then go back and sit with your lady, and I’ll see what I’ve got to work with.”

Jason made sure they put their fires out prior to dawn, but no one was doing the same in Eliada. The smoke climbed above the shadow of the mountains and caught the rising sun high over treetops, a black-and-gold plume that might’ve been visible from as far south as Sand Point.

“Do you think they’ll come? Have you seen them?” Ruth asked him, from the lean-to he’d made her the first day. She had been awake most of the night, and from the quaver in her voice, she must still have been in a fair amount of pain. Nurse Rowe had offered her some morphine from the doctor’s bag, but Ruth had declined, and Nurse Rowe had said she understood. When the pain faded, so did they all.

“I don’t think so,” said Jason. He’d been watching the river since first light, and not long past that, he’d seen The Eliada drift past. The wheels of Garrison Harper’s steamboat were still as it turned in the current that drew it downriver; not a wisp of smoke came from its stack. He didn’t try to hail it. The river had borne nothing but the dead for two days now, and the steamboat hadn’t left town any better off. It was just another corpse.

Jason had only seen two of Eliada’s dead up close, as he drew hook and line through the fast-moving river to catch their supper, one coming close after another: a man with a belly either fat or bloated under his white shirt, and what looked a lady, skirts spread like a great dark flower in the churning water. But there were dozens, distant shapes rolling in the fast waters of the Kootenai, bearing north into the wilderness. Jason prayed it was only wilderness… not more folk.

He prayed for that, same as he prayed no more boats would come to Eliada, until the Cave Germ had finished its work—starved out that Juke, wiped its many ghosts and devils from the land, and died off itself.

Ruth sniffed. “It’s a certainty, then. Mr. Green’s mission was a success.”

“It was.”

“I suppose it was a kind of heroism.”

“It was sure a sacrifice,” said Jason. He crouched down beside Ruth and took her hand. It trembled for only a moment before it gripped his hand, hard.

She sniffed again, and whispered on scarcely more than a breath:

“ All dead .”

Jason looked down at Ruth Harper. Her face was smeared with dirt and mud, and leaves and twigs tangled in her hair. The tiny smile that’d bewitched him so on the train, before he knew her name, was gone—perhaps forever. He wanted to speak with her about that. He wanted to tell her: My ma died too, all my kin are dead—my whole home—just like yours. And I ain’t found a place for them in me, but I’m going to. Just like you will . But as he looked on her face, he saw that wouldn’t do. His own trials, as great as they were, marked only half of Ruth Harper’s journey. She carried a grief like his own, and another’s… .

Well, that was not a grief, exactly. More a hunger.

“Do you think they’re in Heaven?” asked Ruth.

“’Course they are,” he said. “Well, perhaps not all. But Louise? Sure. Your ma—Hell, even your pa. Now, Nils Bergstrom—I don’t think so. And Sam Green?”

“I hope Sam Green’s in Heaven,” said Ruth. “But you answered my question very quickly, Jason. Without thinking.”

“Should have asked the question different, then,” he said. “Question you wanted to ask is: do I have any reason to think there even is a Heaven for them to go to?”

“I’ll try to be more precise next time.”

Jason let go of her hand and pushed himself to his feet. He had his own pains—the cut on his leg, a bad rib—scrapes and bruises in a dozen places, taken when he’d tangled with Sam Green—and he relished them as he drew higher, and saw the movement at the cabin’s ruin. Annie Rowe came out first, the doctor’s bag in one hand, the other helping steady Dr. Waggoner, a branch cut into a crutch under his good shoulder. He was amazed the doctor could even walk that well, the things he’d been through. The two of them made their way forward low along the riverbank, to avoid the ankle-twister rocks higher up. Jason held his hands together in front of him—fingers intertwined as though in prayer, or just clutched against shaking, the line of stitches Waggoner had made in the one palm itching against the other.

“You got to believe in something,” said Jason, and Ruth laughed weakly, and agreed; and then, of their own volition it seemed, Jason’s fingers spread and his hands came apart, and he hurried off, to help the doctor up the rocky slope.

Eutopia wouldn’t be the terror it is without the sharp eyes of readers and fellow writers Madeline Ashby, Robert Boyczuk, Michael Carr, Laurie Channer, Rebecca Maines, John McDaid, Sally Fogel, Elizabeth Mitchell, Janis O’Connor, Helen Rykens, Steve Samenski, Karl Schroeder, Sara Simmons, Michael Skeet, Douglas Smith, Jill Snider Lum, Dale Sproule, Rob Stauffer, Peter Watts, and Allan Weiss.

Monica Pacheco of Anne McDermid & Associates brought the faith, en-thusiasm, and even sharper eye that Eutopia needed to find a publisher. And Brett Savory and Sandra Kasturi at ChiZine Publications had the faith and, I like to think, good sense to become that publisher. Special kudos to my dear editor Sandra, who, along with proofreader Chris Edwards, cover designer Erik Mohr and interior designer Corey Beep, put it all in the tidy, lovely package you hold.

And, of course, Karen Fernandez helped in ways that only she could—with love and faith and patience as life transpired during the long haul of the writing.

Special thanks to Bill Allen, who made sure Lawrence Nickle’s illustrations made it to CZP for the special edition.

FIRST EDITION

Eutopia © 2011 by David Nickle

Cover artwork © 2010 by Erik Mohr

Cover design © 2011 by Corey Beep

Interior artwork © 2011 by Lawrence Nickle

All Rights Reserved.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Nickle, David

Eutopia / David Nickle.

eISBN 978-1-926851-40-2

I. Title.

PS8615.A883F43 2011 C813’.6 C2011-900685-5

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS

Toronto, Canada

www.chizinepub.com

info@chizinepub.com

Edited and copyedited by Sandra Kasturi

Proofread by Chris Edwards

Converted to mobipocket and epub by Ryan McFadden http://ryanmcfadden.com

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.

Published with the generous assistance of the Ontario Arts Council.