by David Nickle
“Hush,” said Annie, and Jason jammed his fists into his pockets, did as he was told. “She was shot in the foot. Her right foot. I cleaned it up, and it should be fine, although I’m guessing she’ll walk with a limp. But Doctor, there’s something else.” She leaned close and whispered. “I think she’s not just infected. She could well be pregnant. By young Mr. Thistledown.”
Andrew nodded slow, and regarded Jason. He held himself as tall and as strong as ever he had, but that hard piece that had glinted from his eye two days ago, when he’d hauled Germaine Frost by the hair into the autopsy—that was gone now. Andrew would have been glad of that, had it been replaced by something other than the aching hurt he’d brought to Eliada, the fearful certainty that more of that hurt was on its way.
“Son,” Andrew said. “Don’t fear. I owe you a debt, and I came back to repay it. I’ll make things right for Ruth Harper.”
“Can you even? I mean, look at what happened to Maryanne Leonard.”
Maryanne Leonard, and Loo Tavish both. Thanks to your shaking hand.
Andrew felt ashamed; he wanted to look away, nestle himself in his shame and self-pity and doubt. But he didn’t. Those things were the Juke’s weapons—that was how the beast got inside, and started changing everything about a fellow, succoured him with sweet lies of an easy Heaven, and eventually turned him from man to slave. Andrew kept his eye on Jason.
“You were with her, weren’t you? Don’t look all puzzled, you know what I mean.”
Jason nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” said Andrew. “I’ve learned some things since you got me out of Eliada. A woman wise in the lore of these things told me—” Norma Tavish, who you also let die “—she told me, that when a woman’s with child, and infected by a Juke—she’s stronger. Because the Juke helps her. Until it’s ready to come out. That’s why Ruth fought off the Cave Germ. That’s why she might stand a better chance now.” Andrew drew a breath, forced himself to keep looking at Jason across the fire. “So don’t you say you’re sorry. The two of you may have saved Ruth’s life.”
“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.
Acknowledgements
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.
Table of Contents
1 - Mister Juke
2 - A Damn Germ
3 - The Horror at Cracked Wheel
4 - Utopia's Daughter
5 - Baby Wakes
6 - The Feeger Girls
7 - The Hippocratic Oath
8 - The Lesson of Minos
9 - The Quarantine Obscenity
10 - The Autopsy
11 - Love Among the Feegers
12 - Aunty's Tears
13 - The Mercy of Sam Green
14 - The Faerie King's Bride
15 - A Wicked Cut
16 - Saint Lothar
17 - The Dauphin's Women
18 - Compassion. Community. Hygiene.
19 - The Rite of Spring
20 - The Secret Terror
21 - The "Germe de grotte"
22 - The Prodigal
23 - The Incident with the Shotgun
24 - The Test of Faith
25 - The Gospel According to Nils
26 - The Pickle Jar
27 - Gods and Oracles
28 - The Old Man
29 - The Oracle Frets
30 - Rapture of the Juke
31 - The Cruelty of Sam Green
32 - Death and Resurrection
Acknowledgements
