The Elephant Slayer
It was called Netherville, which wasn’t too bad a name compared to some of the settlements I’d been to: places like Misery, Montana and Malaise, North Dakota; Grimburg, Texas; Forsaken Falls, Idaho. I guess you could say that American towns have always had ominous names—that it was part of our frontier heritage—but then, I wasn’t in America anymore, I was in Canada. Edmonton, Alberta to be precise. The Big E, as they called it.
As for how I’d come to be there—I’d rather not talk about it, and it’s not important, anyway. Suffice it to say I’d caught a broadcast on the radio of my new Cadillac Escalade (Thanks, Butte Auto Sales, I left a silver dollar in the break room) which had urged me to go north to a town called Paradise—a town I’d mistaken for Paradise, Alberta, a
