West of Here by Jonathan Evison Page A

rested a hand upon Ethan’s shoulder, and Ethan did not shrink from it. “She’s not well. We’re hoping her fever will break. But …”
    “What about the baby? Is the baby okay?”
    “The baby is fine. She’s sleeping in the parlor.”
    “She?”
    “Yes. Your daughter. She has no name of yet.”
    Ethan squeezed past Jacob to the sitting room, now further crowded by a white bassinet. He peered down into the blanketed nest, not quite knowing all that he was looking at, nor what course of action to follow. When Jacob entered the room, Ethan looked to him for instruction.
    “Should I let her sleep?”
    “She’s your daughter. Perhaps an introduction is in order.”
    Ethan lifted the baby from the bassinet with his good arm, cradling her head in the crook of his injured hand; the child did not awaken. Instantly, Ethan’s disappointment fled. He was overcome by her delicacy and diminutive grace; her tiny fingers clutching at his shirtfront, her dark downy hair and its smell of newness, the impossibly delicate veins ribbing her pink eyelids. He could not resist running his crooked thumb over her wrinkled forehead. She was everything the wilderness was not: delicate, vulnerable, small. And she was everything worth taming it for. It was no longer enough to prove something to the world, to distinguish himself for the sake of distinction, to conquer in the name of Ethan Thornburgh. Taming the Elwha was no longer a dream in itself but a means to an end, and that end was to bring civilization to the feet of his daughter, to ensure that she grew up in a world with electricity and a thousand other modern conveniences, so that she should never be forced to sweat and toil in the mud, never have to expose herself to the crushing forces of the wilderness, even to profit by it.
    “Minerva,” said Ethan. The word had just come to his lips. “Her name is Minerva, by God.”
    ETHAN AND JACOB sat vigil with Haw throughout the night, as the lamp burned low. Eva’s condition did not improve. All the color drained out of her. Her bouts with consciousness were infrequent. Her speech was a riddle. Haw alone held out hope. He checked her pulse obsessively, daubed the sweat from her forehead, and at onepoint administered a poultice of crushed herbs and tea on her forehead, neck, and wrists.
    When hunger awoke Minerva during the night, Ethan went to her, and gripped her softly with calloused hands and hoisted her from out of the crib, breathing deeply of her hair. He held her close and rocked her gently; he reassured her in low tones, all to no avail. He was powerless to soothe the child. Her cries were horrific, pinched and phlegmy, earnest beyond all proportion. It was agony to hear them. Finally, he put the child to her mother’s breast, and held her there, where she fed, unbeknownst to Eva.
    What if this child should have no mother? The thought was black and inescapable. That Ethan’s lover lay dying on the bed was of subordinate concern. Surely, no God would take this child’s mother. But as the night wore on, he began to reason that God had forsaken him and, worse, had forsaken his child. And so Ethan invested his faith by degrees in the one agency that might possibly exercise any influence over Eva’s fate. He watched intently each methodical step of the way, as the Chinaman attended her. He looked for signals in Haw’s concentrated manner, but he did not ask questions or try to impose reason upon the Chinaman’s methods. Whether it was rational science or devil’s magic, it was Eva’s only hope. And so he watched sleepily as Haw’s movements played shadows on the wall, listened to the soft patter of Haw’s feet across the wooden floor, breathed the fragrance of a dozen herbs, until at last, Ethan fell asleep in his straight-backed chair.
    Eva’s condition worsened as the night unfolded. Her pulse was wild with feverish rhythms, she twitched on occasion and issued plaintive moans, until suddenly, shortly after dawn, her