The Primeval World

THE ELEPHANT SLAYER-1

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, and so overshot by about 500 miles. Luckily for me, I’d come to Netherville before running out of gas (the Escalade’s tank had been completely full, go figure; that’s why I’d chosen it) and found a friendly settlement in spite of my folly.

At least, it had been friendly so far. In my experience, these things could—and often did—change on a dime. Which is about what I had on me when I walked into the ‘Goodbye to All That’ Saloon and ordered a drink at the makeshift bar; a bar whose counter had been fashioned from the scorched wing of an airplane.

“Keep it,” said the bartender, a largish man with thick stubble and bad teeth, as he pushed back the coins. “First visit’s on us, always.”

He moved toward the back door—which was propped open with a rifle; probably due to heat from the firepit—walking awkwardly, haltingly, as though he had a bad hip. “Beer’s out back—in the snow.”

I glanced around the room as he went: at the other patrons—bearded men, all of them—who had peeled off coats and hats; and at one who hadn’t—a lone figure sitting in the corner ... with a pair of crutches nearby.

“That includes the mastodon; the mammoth. The roast elephant, whatever you want to call it.”

He shuffled back, slowly, arduously, twisting the cap off a bottle of Molson, setting it down. “It’s good—fresh. The meat, eh, not the beer. It was harvested only yesterday.”

He laughed a little and shook his head. “Whatever he does with that ivory, I’ll never know.”

I looked at the bottle of beer, which had foamed over onto the counter—onto the Cessna’s battered wing. “What who does with it?”

“What?”

“What who does with the ivory?”

He lifted the bottle and wiped around the rivets, fussily, fastidiously. “Oh, yuh. You’re the new guy. Why, Gavin Carter, of course. Our mysterious and storied Great White Hunter.”

“Our Nanook of the North!” hollered a nearby patron, lifting his sloshing glass. “The Elephant Slayer of Alberta.”

“Or at least the frozen shithole that used to be Alberta,” said another.

I must have looked confused.

“Local hero,” explained the bartender. “Big-time trophy hunter. Lives in that house up on the ridge; the one with the orange roof—the old Riblet Mansion. Just helped himself to it one day. But he’s a hero because he hunts the mammoth—and I mean consistently, successfully—and keeps the town fed.”

A patron leaned in abruptly, thoughtlessly—as drunk people are wont to do—his breath reeking of Molson. “Speakin’ a which—I’ll take some more of that, eh? The stew.”

“Well, that depends, Liam,” said the bartender. “Where is your bowl?”

The man looked around, dazed and confused, until his glassy eyes settled on the back of the room—and the booth next to the solitary figure.

“Never mind, Liam,” said the bartender warily. “I’ll get it for you. Just relax.” He gave me a little bow. “Excuse me.”

“Of course,” I said.

And then I took my first drink and paused—savoring it. Savoring its bite and its body and its bitterness and its perfection. Worshiping it; and focusing upon it to the exclusion of all else. Because the truth of it was, drinking it was like drinking civilization itself.

The drunk, meanwhile, was just staring at me: as though he knew me, perhaps, or maybe not. As though he loved me, perhaps—but maybe hated me too. As though there was something on his mind that he just had to say—if he could just untangle his thoughts and find the right words. If he could just get his mouth to open and his tongue to—

“Don’t,” I said.

And he didn’t—talk to me, that is—after which the bartender returned and fetched me another beer—saying, as he twisted the cap off and set it down, “Compliments of the young lady in the corner.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw that the figure had unzipped its coat and removed its scarf and hat—revealing a woman with black, unkempt hair and harsh, asymmetrical features (and yet attractive, for all that) who couldn’t have been more than, say, twenty-five. A woman who looked at me with such startling clarity and matter-of-factness that I almost averted my eyes—but didn’t, because I didn’t want to appear weak. Instead, I just smiled—confidently, breezily (at least that was my schtick), raising my beer bottle. As though I wasn’t just Travis Hayes, UPS delivery driver from Denver, Colorado, but Travis-f*****g-Hayes, Carefree Stud of the Apocalypse.

That’s when it happened; when the fight broke out, erupting in a flurry of broken glass and expletives (and flying booze), toppling the nearby barstools.

“Hey, goddamnit!” shouted the bartender, as I scrambled clear of the melee—which, surprise! involved the man who had been staring at me— “Hey, hey, hey!”

And then everything was noise and fury as others joined in and I turned to check on the black-haired girl (although why I am not certain; she could clearly take care of herself), but saw only an empty booth. Everything was chaos and confusion as I stared into her corner and noted the missing crutches—but couldn’t for the life of me figure out where they—or she—had gone.

I looked to where a wooden door swung back and forth in the wind, letting in gusts of snow. The side alley, of course—!

And then I was moving—double-timing it, as we used to say in the corps—dodging a pair of brawlers, bursting into the alley; pausing by a heap of garbage as I noticed there were no footprints in the snow and thus no way to—

At which my vision winked out and I could see only stars, like scratches in space-time itself. At which I saw only comets—which darted and swirled, ember-like, as I fell.

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