Eutopia (4 page)

When he got up, that was it.

Later, Jason would think that it was better his mama saw him tending the fire as she died. His mama valued that sort of thing, that
self-sufficiency
as she called it. Self-sufficiency had seen her raise Jason alone here in the wilds of northwest Montana—laugh at all the folks who’d said she, born and raised in the east and come out here only late in life, wouldn’t last a year now that her husband was gone.

Yes, he would think, she probably took a deal of comfort in watching him see to his needs; more comfort than having him right there beside her as the life fled her flesh.

Yet there at the deathbed, Jason didn’t even cry. He just stood, hands hanging dead weight at his side. He shuffled over to her bed, and fell to his knees, and died himself or so it seemed to him.

His mama was gone; taken from him by a God-damned germ.

It was on February 12, 1911 that she died.

Jason did not look at the clock when it happened, but sometime afterward he remarked to himself that it struck eleven in the night; so he surmised she’d died prior to eleven but past what might normally be the supper hour, although they had not had a proper supper, and he finally hazarded a guess and wrote this down in the front of their Bible:

He wrote those words the morning of February 13, before he ventured outside to check on the pigs and found that one of them had died too—a young boar that Jason’s mama was fattening for slaughter. The freeze had taken care of the slaughter, and by the time Jason had come out, the remaining four pigs were taking care of the carcass.

The whole homestead was snowbound—one side of the cabin was covered in a drift of white that went from the roof shingles to the ground in a smooth curve, like the snow that ran down the distant western mountain peaks, and the blizzard had left no path between cabin and pigsty. Jason started through the white anyway but it was tough going.

He was finally reduced to hollering, “Stop! You’re eatin’ your own! Damn cannibal hogs!” The swine paid him no heed.

Jason swore a storm, and waved his arms, and finally, in frozen exhaustion, turned back to the cabin.

With that picture in his head, he knew there was no question.

No matter how he loved her, Jason Thistledown could no longer live under the same roof as his mama—reduced as she was to nothing but soured meat.

When he composed himself, he found a shovel and began digging a path from the cabin. The sun was as high as it would get, casting a shortening shadow to the north by the time he’d made it to the side where the woodshed stood. There was a
good
half-cord of wood stacked within. But Jason looked to the braces. They were six feet from the ground, and spaced adequately for the task.

Against the wall in the shed was a stack of pine planks, bought by him and his mama that autumn past in hopes of setting down a proper floor in the cabin. He lifted two of those planks into the rafters, making a high platform that he reckoned would keep her safe from predation and wolves until the thaw.

“I am sorry, Mama,” he said as he hefted her sheet-wrapped body over his shoulder and put a foot on the ladder. She was wearing the same sheet she’d died in, and he had not washed her, and even in the sharp February cold she gave a stink like a shallow privy.

“I guess,” he said as he rolled her onto the makeshift platform and settled her on her back, “sayin’ sorry’s one thing I can do fine.”

The winter finished hard, one storm after another hitting the Thistledown homestead in a succession of punishing smacks that blanketed the snow in thick layers. Jason fought back dully—each day clearing a path between the door of the house and the woodshed, and halfway along cutting off another path to the sty. He waited a few days but finally succumbed and became diligent in throwing feed to the cannibal swine, creatures he was coming to hate but could not bring himself to kill.

He told himself that when the thaw came, he would trade the sty of them for the finest of coffins, and the churchyard plot nearest to Jesus, a tombstone carved with his mama’s saintly visage and words from the most eloquent preacher in Montana to send her Heaven-ward.

Toward such an end, the pigs would have to be fed daily, lest they ate one another to extinction before winter’s finish.

Aside from the daily feedings, however, Jason did not spend much time tending the pigs.

Most times, he sat bundled in the woodshed, the Winchester in his lap. As the days grew longer, Jason grew more certain that his mama’s frozen resting place was not so secure. Three years ago, during a winter not so harsh as this one, his mama had bent down and showed him tracks in the snow.

Dogs?
Jason guessed, and his mama had corrected him:
Not dogs, Jason. Wolves. A pack of them. That’s what the gun’s for.

Jason had not seen wolf tracks around the homestead this winter, but he was on the lookout for them all the same—particularly as the snow climbed higher, nearer the height of the braces, and his mama’s frozen body.

He only felt truly safe for his mama when another blizzard blew, and the cold came so strong that nothing—he hoped—could live outside shelter.

Otherwise, he guarded and he patrolled, to make sure no strange tracks came near. He thought of how he would kill a wolf if it came. He counted his ammunition and thought how he would kill five of them. He began to think how he might kill a man if it came to that.

He grew thinner. He felt a hardness come over his face, and when he looked at it in the glass, he thought he looked like someone else. It was worse when he tried to smile, so he didn’t.

Instead, he guarded. And he waited—for the weather to break, so he could get moving, begin the business of trading the lives of his swine for a funeral for his mama.

The sun grew brighter and the smell of old leaves and pine needles came up from the ground. The crackling sound of icicles breaking could be heard, and when in the early morning he stepped onto the stoop, Jason felt a near thing to joy.

Soon, he could be off to town. Soon, he could finish things right: trade the cannibal pigs for the best coffin, an eloquent preacher and the plot nearest Jesus.

He pulled up his coat and set off for the woodshed through the now-slushy path he’d dug for himself. He felt like he should tell his mama something—that everything would be fine, her soul would be soon on the way to Heaven. But having spent the days watching over her, he was fairly certain she was not there to hear it.

All the same. Jason wanted to see her. Maybe whisper it.

But he stopped before he got far, and cursed himself. This was, of course, the first time in weeks he had headed there without the rifle. And this morning was also the first that he had seen tracks, other than his own.

Jason stepped back into the cabin, took hold of the Winchester, and with considerably greater care, crept around the cabin’s side to the woodshed.

How do I shoot a man?

The question suddenly became relevant, because the tracks he saw were not wolf tracks. They were boots, and by the look of them they were heading up from the direction of Cracked Wheel before they stepped down onto the path and disappeared.

Jason stood against the wall of the cabin, rifle held to his chest, heart hammering, and peered around. He blinked, and thought:

How do I shoot a woman?

She wore a black overcoat with a fur collar and a fur-lined hat; she was stout but not overly so, and carried in one hand a carpet bag. In her other hand—her right hand—she held a revolver. She was looking up into the rafters, faced away from Jason.

Well
, he thought, stepping out and lowering the rifle,
one thing’s sure. I do not shoot her in the back.

“Drop the gun, please ma’am.” He was surprised at how calm his voice sounded, even as the thought occurred to him: should she turn too fast, or jump away, or do anything dangerous, he would have to shoot her. Somehow, he would have to shoot her. “I have you covered.”

“Oh!” The gun fell from her hand, as did the carpet bag. She raised two small gloved hands. “Please don’t shoot. May I turn?”

Her voice made Jason think of easterners. Which made him think of his mama.

“You may,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

The woman turned, her feet making a sucking sound in the dirt. Jason judged her to be older than his mama had been, but not much. She wore eyeglasses, and he thought them to be very thick, because her eyes seemed very large.

“Is that Ellen?” she asked, motioning to the rafters.

Jason took a breath and lowered the rifle. He didn’t expect this strange woman would be trading gunfire with him. But that wasn’t to say he was ready to trust her yet.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “What’re you doin’ here, if you please?”

“I’m—” she looked back up “—oh my. That is Ellen, isn’t it? Oh, poor dear Ellen. Did she succumb too?”

“She’s dead, if that’s what you mean,” said Jason. He stepped toward the woman—keeping an eye on the revolver all the while. He felt a piece of him break off in his chest as he said the words. “My mama’s been dead—some time now.”

The woman looked down, and brought a gloved hand to her eye. “Oh. Your mama.”

“Ma’am,” said Jason, collecting himself, “who are you, please?”

She looked at him again, with those great big eyes. They seemed less sure of themselves this time.

“I am Germaine Frost,” she said. “I am, well . . . I suppose I am your aunt. Ellen Thornton was my baby sister.”

It was hard to credit it at first. Jason’s mama had been tall and blonde-haired, with a firm jawline and a lean, strong figure. Germaine Frost was in many respects the opposite. She was not as tall as Jason, and the line of her jaw was obscured by thick jowls, and her hair was black as an Injun’s.

And leaving aside the glasses, there was the fact that Jason could recall no point at which his mother had talked of any aunts or uncles.

Jason wished she might have. But he supposed this was as good a time as any to meet one of them—he was in need of relations now as never before.

He gathered Germaine Frost’s revolver, her bag, and carried both to the cabin. Germaine—Aunt Germaine—followed at a respectful distance. As they came to the stoop, she asked him to stop a moment.

“Have you washed inside?” she asked.

“Washed—”

“Inside,” she said. “The house. It is a plague house, after all. It may still be infected.”

“Infected?”

“With the disease that took my dear sister. Although not you, young master—Jason, is it?”

“Yes ma’am. Jason Thistledown’s my name. And no ma’am. I did not wash. Not especially, inside I mean.” He shuffled his feet. “It’s pretty ripe in there I guess.”

“Well, Jason,” she said, and put out her hand, “let’s have a look. Please hand me my bag.”

Aunt Germaine set the bag down in a drift. She took a little handful of snow, and scrubbed the handles of the bag where Jason had held it. Then she took more snow and rubbed it in her gloved hands before opening the bag. She rooted through some neatly folded cloth until she pulled out a small handkerchief, with strings coming out of each corner. Jason watched as she placed the cloth over her mouth, then reached up and tied it behind her head like she was doing her hair. In the end, the little handkerchief covered her mouth and her nose. Finally, she pulled off her hat and took off her coat, and set them down atop the carpet bag.

“Very good,” she said, her voice muffled by the cloth. “Now let us see how you have been getting by, Jason.”

Jason stepped aside to let Aunt Germaine through. She did not get far inside.

“Oh my,” she said. “Where does one start?”

Jason looked past her to see what she meant. The cabin was a simple enough place to his eye. One long pine table with a couple of chairs, the wood stove in the middle of it, a tiny windowsill and the beds at one end of it. All in one room.

“This,” she said, “is a breeding place for germs. The ground itself is your floor! Had you been staying outside all the time, Jason?”

“No ma’am.”

“Did you isolate your dear mother as she was ill?”

“No ma’am.”

She turned to him. Her eyes seemed very large behind the glasses. “And after she passed. You’ve remained here for how long after that?”

“Don’t know.”

“Weeks?”

“Months.”

“Oh my.”

She stepped back outside, and leaned close to him. “It is all right, my dear,” she said. “I am well-trained. Open your mouth. And turn to the sun, please, so I can better see.”

Two hours later, Jason Thistledown was naked as the day he was born, up to his breast-bone in a tub of scalding hot water that Aunt Germaine had made him boil up on the wood stove and haul to a level spot in the lee of the house, and rubbing himself down with a black, stinging bar of soap from the carpet bag.