West of Here Read Online Free Page A

His mustache took on water and began to wilt. His heel was squeaking and his suit was heavy with rainwater by the time he arrived at the foot of a stumped and muddy hogback on the east end of town. Twice he lost his footing clambering up the muddy path and on one occasion very nearly lost his suitcase down the stubbled hillside.
    As he crested the hump, he got his first look at the colony below. He took out his pipe, packed it, and attempted to smoke in the rain, as he looked down upon the Utopia for which Eva had abandoned him. The model commonwealth, free of working-class turmoil, free of labor strife, free of corporate tyranny, in short, the solution to the Chinese problem. A mill, a boat shed, a theater, a hotel, a schoolhouse. A cluster of little white houses huddled together like Indians on the shoreline. Doomed to failure, thought Ethan, all of it. Human nature would never allow for cooperation on such a scale. But it was nice to think so. How orderly the colony appeared clustered on one side of the hill, with the ragged outpost of Port Bonita on the other, how refined in comparison was its very conception. Yet, it was Port Bonita that called to Ethan, not the colony. Port Bonita, with its crude and youthful vigor, its laughing, belching, bawdy can-do spirit. A pugnacious town, Port Bonita, a fighter, and a damn good bet. It was Port Bonita into which Ethan would invest all his of faith and energy. And one day, God willing, he would invest his fortune there, too.
    A full two minutes passed in contemplation before Ethan took notice of the spindly native child standing downhill of him at a distance of some twenty feet, arms akimbo, impervious to the rain. Clearly, there was something odd about this round-faced boy, if indeed, it was a boy. His lips were moving silently. Odder still were the child’s glacial blue eyes, almost as pale as his own, which seemed to be focusing on some distant point beyond Ethan. Glancing back over his shoulder, Ethan found himself hemmed in by a muddy hillside.
    “Boo!” said Ethan, swinging around.
    But the child did not budge.
    “Don’t frighten easily, eh? That’s good. That’ll get you far, son. What’s your name?”
    The boy remained silently fixated on his distant point.
    “I see. Silent, too. That’ll get you even further. My name is Ethan. Ethan Thornburgh. Remember that name, son. One day it will mean something.”
    The boy tilted his head slightly to one side and squinted.
    “Not convinced, are you? Well, that’s okay. I should think you’re notalone there. No, I’m rather used to that by now. But let me tell you a little secret, boy. A man’s destiny is not in the eyes of others. It’s in his own. And that, my young friend, is as good as any bank note.”
    Covering one eye with his hand, the boy tilted his head to the other side.
    Ethan did the same.
    The boy took a step forward, and Ethan, too, stepped forward. When the boy stepped back again, Ethan followed suit. This dance continued for several minutes. When it became clear to Ethan that the boy would win any war of repetition, he emptied his pipe with a tap and replaced it in his hip pocket. Thumbing the thin roll of bills in his pocket, he surveyed the mud-spattered condition of his trouser legs and laughed.
    “Good day,” Ethan said, doffing his soggy hat to the boy. He then turned and began trudging east down the squishy path toward the colony.
    THOMAS FOUND HIS MOTHER seated alone by the fire at the mouth of the creek. The rain had let up, but the fire still hissed, unfurling a ribbon of black smoke toward the shoreline. Thomas sat beside her. His lips stopped moving. His mother did not look up but out across the strait. Thomas scooted closer, but still she did not acknowledge the boy. Upbeach to the east, a chain of six fires at roughly even distances unfurled their own black ribbons into the wind. Thomas could hear, just above the lapping shoreline, the low chatter of his people and occasionally the