Reckoning of Boston Jim (32 page)

The Judge is not in the Occidental's saloon. Nor is he in the reading room just beside it. A fire burns lonesome in the grate. An unironed copy of the Colonist is open on the card table. It is over six weeks old. A headline proclaims the victory of the Union Army over the Confederates at Gettysburg. War. Battles. Is there nothing else to discuss?

Back in the saloon he leans heavily on the bar. “Whiskey.”

“No jawbone here, Hume.”

He spills a few coins onto the bar. “What is that? Tailings. Lumps of coal?”

The barkeep counts them with maddening slowness, then pours out a shot of the cheapest whiskey. Eugene gulps it down. Astonishing the flow of reason it engenders. With most people it is the reverse. For now he suspects that it was not the Judge. For he would have turned if he had known it was Eugene. Besides, Eugene's senses have not been the most trustworthy of late—had he not smelled roast pork when it was only his boots being singed by the fire? Not felt, just before the unwelcome dawn, Dora's minty kisses? Certainly the darkness of the mine has done nothing to invigorate the senses. It has a texture, almost, like damp wool, and an absoluteness that the merlin candles can barely challenge. If he is not on his guard he will become like that Finnish miner who started tearing off his clothes and raving in his own queer tongue. Disappeared to God knows where. Poor sod. Here's to him.

The saloon is becoming crowded, tobacco fogged. A man in his shirt sleeves searches through the song sheets atop the piano, settles at the stool.

Then sleep, let her sleep in the grave we have made;

From the cares of this World she is free;

Then weep, let us weep, while the tall willows wave

O'er the grave of our own Carrie Lee.

Carrie Lee? Again? Why not Cariboo Cameron? Now there is a tragedy worthy of a song. Eugene has written Dora of the cautionary tale in case she is still wishing she had joined him. Women did not belong in the goldfields, as well he warned Dora, as someone should have warned Cameron. Instead he brought his wife Sophia and their little daughter who died before the goldfields were even reached. And then came a winter so cold that metal snapped like twigs. The Camerons stayed and worked the claim with partners. Sophia huddled in their tiny cabin. The fever was raging on the creeks that winter and it was not long before the lovely Sophia fell ill. How would the song go?

He struck the lead, two months after she was dead

Poor Cameron! Poor Cameron!

A town with his name, but no wife in his bed

Her last sweet request, to be buried in Ontario

To be buried in Ontario, oh, ho.

And so thro' ice and snow, thro' bitter winds and mountains high

Twenty-two men did to Victoria her coffin take nigh

To be buried in Ontario oh, ho.

Yes. John Angus Cameron. A high price for his riches. He now has three shafts and near a hundred men working for him and the gold is coming out by the bucket. The diminutive Billy Barker can be seen strutting about as well. He is a Naval deserter, a Cornishman. No price has he paid for his fortune.

More men enter with much stomping of boots and much calling for coffee and grog. Eugene hunkers over the bar. Tips his hat over his brow.

“Mr. Hume? Is you?”

Eugene grudgingly admits it is his very self indeed. Manages a smile and a handshake for Herr Boots who wears a fur-lined overcoat and a voluminous green scarf, who no longer looks the shabby merchant, no indeed. Manages a nod and mumbled good day for Oswald who wears a towering top hat, a scarlet waistcoat, and an ill-fitting coat adorned with fat brass buttons, who looks, in all, like a well-dressed troll. Fortunate for Oswald that he arrived in the goldfields a good two weeks before Eugene, and thus before the opportunities were taken up. Fortunate that Herr Boots sold his gumboots for a staggering sixty dollars a piece and with that purchased shares in Oswald's mine, The Jessica Bell. Fortunate that The Jessica Bell chanced to yield while all the claims around them yielded nothing. Expertise had some hand in their success. Eugene can admit that. But it was luck as well that led them to the pay dirt. The Jessica Bell now employs over twenty men who work 'round the clock and who thus leave the main shareholders—Oswald and Herr Boots, or Herr Schultheiss as he is better known—with leisure time aplenty to strut their wealth.

≈  ≈  ≈

“You are liking this Sunday?” Schultheiss asks. He rubs his nose with a vast handkerchief and calls for the door to be shut against the dangerous drafts, mentions an ache in his neck that will not cease.

“Yeah, how's your Sunday, Hume?”

“Swell, gentlemen.”

“And what about that played-out hole you and them others bought, how's that?”

“It is not played out.”

“I heard it's emptier than an old whore's heart.”

“It is not.”

“Find the god-blamed gold did you?”

“Not as yet. There is gold. I saw it. It is only a matter of time.”

“Christ's turds. Never heard of spiking, Hume?”

Eugene is silent.

“Wouldn't catch me crapping in that hole, never mind going down it. Mouse fart got more chance of holding up in a storm.”

“Go it easy, Os. He has hard time,” says Schultheiss.

“It was vouched for,” Eugene says, louder than he intends. “It was vouched for by two others, no less. They had no interest in the mine.”

“You can pay a man to vouch for fucknit anything, can't you? Shoulda asked me.”

Eugene snorts. Asked Oswald? Cussy Os as he is being called? This troll?

He excuses himself, dashes down the whiskey, then slams the glass on the bar to show that he is not to be trifled with. The short bark of Oswald's laughter follows him out the door.

“Good day, Mr. Hume!” Schultheiss calls out, sincerely enough.

Damn Oswald. He is right, of course, the Dora Dear is a miserable mine. She is plagued by quicksand and flooding and weak-timbered shafts that groan and weep as though the earth itself were in torment. But it is not as if Eugene threw himself into it with no consideration. Indeed, he had been about to tell the Greek and Holy Dunmore that he was no longer interested in their claim. Then he overheard two men, hardened miners by the look of them, discussing the claim in a saloon and saying how they wished they could buy the majority of shares in the Praise to God. The mine was yielding some now, and would soon enough be showing pay dirt. Lucky for someone the Greek's wife died and he had to return to his ten motherless children. Lucky for someone that Holy Dunmore is a holy fool for selling the mine so cheaply. This was in late July. Eugene had met up with George Bowson and Langstrom and the three of them were working a surface claim far from the major, known-yield streams as these were unfortunately already staked out. On their claim they found only enough flecks of gold to keep them from starving. He told Langstrom and George what he overheard and they agreed in due course that the Praise to God seemed their only chance. The Greek and Holy Dunmore were asking eight hundred dollars for the paying claim, the cabin included. Between the three of them they had only five hundred and ten dollars, provided they could sell their claim, which they did, though for less than they had hoped.

Lorn and Napoleon were less easy to convince. Even after they saw the gleam in the sand dug from the shaft. Even after the Greek and Holy Dunmore showed Napoleon the books and swore on the Bible that the claim was honest.

“Surface mining is not the way to riches, men,” Eugene told them. “We have learned that. Let us now band together.”

Napoleon and Lorn looked at him doubtfully. In the end he promised that if the mine did not yield enough to cover their outlay before the season was out he would repay them in full. When they questioned how he was to do this, moneyless as he was, the lie came to him unbidden. His rich widowed aunt—the very one who gave him five hundred dollars to journey to the colonies—was sending a draft note for one hundred pounds to the bank in Richfield. It would be the equivalent of another five hundred. He was expecting it by September. And so it was decided. Lorn and Napoleon would sell their claim and buy into the Praise to God. “You wouldn't fool the men who saved your skin and whatnot?” Lorn asked. No, Eugene assured him, he would rather die, then wondered if he truly should write a beseeching letter to Aunt Georgina, that harridan. He soon shook off the notion. She had given him the money to travel to the goldfields only if he promised never to darken her door again. She had then made a promise herself, which was to feed any letters from him to her hounds.

They agreed to rename the mine the Dora Dear. Eugene, after all, was the one who had convinced them all to buy it. Eugene was the “lucky one,” as Langstrom said so often that Lucky Hume nearly became his nickname. In retrospect he should have chosen a less sentimental name, as so many others seem to. Now he understands why. The Cowshit Claim. The Sheep's Balls Claim. The Whore's Hole. Such names suit an endeavour likely to bring only curses.

≈  ≈  ≈

He makes his way back to Tang Lee's. Only a few weeks' more credit, sir, he practices silently. My word as a gentleman. He is nearly there when his path is blocked.

“You have been asking for me, sir?” The Judge is looking at him strangely. He takes Eugene's proffered hand. His dirty paw.

“Your Honour! Matthew! I am pleased. So pleased.”

“Have we met?”

“Yes, yes. At Yale. In June. I helped your clerk.”

“Ah, of course, Mr. Toom was it?”

“Hume. Eugene Augustus Hume. It is understandable you don't recognize me. My appearance has altered. It seems I am accommodating myself to this place rather too well.”

“Do not apologize for the evidence of honest labour.”

“I saw you. I shouted.”

“There is much shouting in this town.”

“Quite so. It is good, excellent, in fact, to see you. May I stand treat for a coffee? Or perhaps a refreshing draft of some kind.” Is the Judge one for spirits? Three pounds and some odd shillings is all Eugene has left in his pocket, is all he has left in the world.

“You have a legal matter to discuss?”

Legal matter? Another understandable mistake. Eugene is twisting his hat in his hand like a supplicant. And the Judge is a busy man, a man immersed in legal minutiae. Let them first talk of legalities then, if that is the way things must be done, for Eugene does, in fact, have a grievance. “My claim. I believe it was spiked. I believe they altered the books. I, we, bought it in good faith.”

“And when did you put your good money down?”

“The mid of July.”

“Did you report your suspicions immediately to the gold commissioner's office?”

“No, I would not say immediately. It took some time to realize that, well, that . . .”

“That a mistake had been made?”

“Quite so, exactly so,” Eugene mops his brow with his sleeve, grateful for the Judge's tact, that he need not admit that he, they, have been made fools of, have thrown their money down a bottomless pit and that never has an analogy been more apt.

“They are surely long gone,” the Judge says. “
Caveat emptor
and such.”

“I was told by others, you see. It was in their opinion.”

“A man should not be easily swayed by the opinions of others.”

“Quite so. I agree entirely.”

As they speak, men jostle past Eugene but part around the Judge like water around a stone. They tip their hats, say
good morning
to him in German, French, Spanish, Gaelic. The Judge replies in kind. It is not surprising he barely recalls Eugene. He must encounter a hundred men a day. Must hear constantly of their dilemmas.

“Mr. Hume?”

Eugene's knees buckle. “I am . . . it is just, just that . . .”

The Judge grips his elbow and steers him toward the New England Bakery and Saloon. The waiter calls out his pleased salutations, shoos away a table of dawdlers, helps ease Eugene into a chair. Such solicitousness. Such vicarious respect.

“Two plates of your flapjacks, Mr. Wilkins. Ham and potatoes, coffee, and some of your ambrosial pie to finish. I take it, Mr. Hume, that you could use a meal? Do not worry,
I
am standing treat.”

“Thank you, yes,” Eugene whispers. “I will repay the favour. On my honour.” He pats his breast as if searching for something.

“Do not trouble yourself. You were of help to my clerk when he was in his cups. I have not forgotten. Such things have a way of coming full circle, much as justice does.” He folds one of his long legs over the other and stuffs his pipe. Appears quite at home, even in the cramped space of the New England.

The waiter sets down the steaming plates. Eugene dredges up his manners. How quickly they have fallen by the wayside. He must not stuff his mouth full, though he would like to, though it seems he has never tasted a finer repast.

“You will find it difficult to believe the misfortunes I have had,” Eugene says after a time.

“There is little I find difficult to believe,” the Judge says and instructs the waiter to bring them more coffee, more pie.

Such a relief to have such a sympathetic ear. Eugene tells of his encounter with the camels, of being robbed, of having to labour on the road gang, of Ariadne's gruesome death. His fever. The kindness of Lorn and Napoleon. He tells how after a day in the mine he feels as one who has been locked in the stocks and pelted with apples. He mentions his guidebook. How it had once seemed a grand plan that would bring him some notice, some respectable earnings. Now it seems all folly. The Judge is nodding. It is as if he has experienced similar deprivations, or at least has heard of them. He seems different from the man Eugene met in Yale. He was more aloof then, more keen to show his learning and not his heart. Amazing how the frontier can change a man. But then Eugene himself has changed. The peevish tone in his voice is something new entirely. He who was never one to complain.
Who could liven a graveyard
, as Dora once said.