Reckoning of Boston Jim (34 page)

Illdare's lips move as he reads along. His eyes grow wide with astonishment. “Stop now. Enough. It is exactly so. Word for word. What more do you remember?”

“What more?”

“Take, say . . .say, something I might have said to Anawiskum.”

“When?”

“A month ago, a week ago. Anything you recall.”

“You said those bear hides will combust if you pack them that way, you half-breed mooncalf. Were in the storeroom then. Was a Tuesday by the calendar. The fifth of October.”

Illdare hauls a company journal down from the shelf. He folds back the great pages. “Describe the weather of twelve days past.”

“Morning mist. Then it rained. Sun. Rain again.”

“And how many Indians came to trade? What did they trade?”

Boston says: “Was helping press the furs that day. Weren't in the trade room.”

“Then on a day you were.”

“Was there the day it stormed.”

“When was that?”

“Twenty-third of the September.”

“What occurred?”

“Two of the Kwagu'l came in first. A man and a woman. They had an otter skin. They spoke a form of the jargon. Asked to see you. Said they had more to trade. Certain thing you'd want. They'd heard that. McNeal told them he was the only one trading. They insisted and he went and got you.”

“That I remember, yes. Go on now, spare no detail.”

And so it goes. Boston tells what the man and woman wore, their gestures, the way the woman bargained more forcefully than the man, the way she berated him in their tongue for relenting so quickly to such a low price.

“Astonishing. Astonishing. You will make a remarkable clerk. Would you like that?”

“Yes. Would like that.”

“Keep this as our secret, Jim. Do not allow others to know, ever, of your ability. Not the engagés, not the Indians, not anyone you should meet in your life. Few others have any reason and will see in your talent the devil's hand. Do you understand?”

“Won't say, no.”

“The shipwreck. But what of that, then?

Boston shakes his head. Usually a scene fills itself in until all details are there, in the order that they were. Immutable. Exact. The time before is different. Full of shouts and crashing and the pounding of feet and shouting and water hurling down. The images are in a chaos. Are missing great gaps.

“Don't remember. Not details. Parts. Faded half-bits.”

“Strange.”

Boston places his hands on his chest. The wounds have healed but still they ache at times.

“Ah. It is the magic of this James Milroy of Boston. Is that what you are believing?”

“Don't know.”

“Hear me, Jim, it is coincidence only. The belief in witchcraft is best left to Yorkshire villagers and savages.” He shakes his head. “You recall everything. Everything. Without change. An odd expression travels over Illdare's face as he adds: “You poor bastard.” Boston has seen this expression on Illdare's face only once before. That was when, nearly thirteen months past now, he stroked Boston's forehead as he lay battered and aching, in confusion as to where he was.

The hills are dense with water wheels, flumes, and windlasses that clank and creak like medieval siege engines. Eugene makes his way over the ragged trail, over low flumes and logs, over planks and ditches, past a broken cart wheel, a growling dog, past men labouring, ever labouring. He walks with exaggerated caution. Last week a Dutchman broke his leg at just this time of day, when the grey light smudges the borders between this thing and that.

The miners have constructed crude cabins, earthen pits roofed with split logs, tents, even brush shelters, the sort better fit for hermits bent on suffering and sainthood. At least his cabin is chinked with moss and has a solid bark roof that leaks only in hard rains. He should thank the Lord for His small mercies and not grumble that goat pens are as large, nor that the beds are as narrow and hard as trestle tables. “Matters could be worse,” as Young George is wont to say. True, they could be eight men to such a cabin. They could be sleeping in shifts, in the stew of each other's dirt and sweat. They could be dead. That would be worse, Eugene supposes.

The stench of an abandoned mine shaft near drops him to his knees. He soundly curses. He himself championed an end to using such shafts as receptacles for shit and piss and refuse of all kinds, or at least
hear-heared
the idea in a saloon at some point. He will mention the problem to the Judge when he sees him again. Perhaps there is a legal angle to it all. Filth should be criminal, leading as it does to pestilence.

Lanterns begin speckling the hills. Eugene strikes a lucifer that hisses uselessly. It will be dark as pitch by the time he returns to the cabin. Without a lamp he will be lost. He will wander into the woods and die of hunger and exhaustion and cold as others have done. Only his bones will be found. Only his bones and his last desperate attempts to scratch out his name and fate. Or perhaps they will find no sign of him. Bears and pumas will consume him whole. He will. . . . The second lucifer strikes. Flares. Eugene sighs. Holds the lamp high. Who is that singing? What language? It is syllabic and off-key and seems to be forming itself from the gloaming. Eugene pulls his blanket coat closed. Peers this way, now that. Lost, are you, Eugene Augustus? Yet again? No. There is the Dewlap claim and to the right of it is the trail that leads eventually into the forest and then to Lickety creek. He whistles in false cheer, wishes mightily that his flask were full of good brandy. Recalls those morbid old tales of children lost and witches found, recalls a childhood belief in a vast skeletal hand that crept from an abandoned manor to claim the wayward, and now, least welcome, recalls a leafless tree that at first seemed full of rounded, sleeping birds, which on closer inspection proved to be the heads of Russian soldiers.

≈  ≈  ≈

A good hour passes before he hears the rush of the creek and spies, with great relief, the black form of the cabin and then the mine some fifty yards past it.

He is greeted with
good evenings
and with the sight of the cabin's tin stove that faintly rattles as if something were hopelessly trying to escape. Smoke hovers near the roof and steam rises from a line festooned with socks and underclothes. The odours of wet wool and boots reign perpetual, Napoleon having insisted that boots be pried off at the end of each day. It is the only protection against the gumboot gout, he claims, an affliction that marries the boot to a man's foot, creating a green and putrid hybrid.

Langstrom stirs a black pot. Napoleon is at the small table reading his book of remedies. Lorn is hacking wood outside. Bowson is lying on his lower bunk, staring upward, possibly thinking.

“You have caught us some dinner, Langstrom, splendid,” Eugene says, his mouth watering though his belly is still half-full from his afternoon meal.

Langstrom nibbles at his fingers, puffs out his cheeks.

“Rabbit?” Eugene asks hopefully.

“Actually, it is squirrel,” Napoleon says.

Langstrom is the best shot of them all and as well the best cook. For these reasons they recently agreed that he should spend a half-portion of his time hunting instead of mining. Any gold would be shared equally with him, of course, just as if he were digging himself. It took some time to convey this plan to Langstrom who from their gesturing thought perhaps that they were threatening to shoot and eat him. But it has paid off. Though they are never full, they have not starved, and now and then there is enough gold scratched from the claim to buy some beans, flour, sugar even.

Eugene sits across from Napoleon who barely glances up from his reading. Calls a
good evening
up to George.

“And good evening to you, Doc. How was your afternoon?”

“Excellent. Splendid. I was strolling through that shelving known as a boardwalk when I was hailed by the Judge and . . .”

“The Judge! Gosh!”

“Yes, we struck up a friendship in Victoria, you see.”

“That's right. You told us that,” George says.

“Plenty of times,” Lorn says, coming through the doorway, thudding down a load of wood.

“It's just that the Judge, well, he's something.”

Eugene agrees with George that the Judge is something indeed. Tells how the Judge treated him to a coffee. “We talked of a great many things. We have much in common.”

“Did you tell him 'bout the mine and whatnot?” Lorn asks. There is no accusation in his voice. Still it is hard not to take umbrage when confronted with a face frozen into a sneer. It is such that Eugene can barely look at Lorn, otherwise everything Lorn says seems riddled with contempt. “Pass the biscuits”. “Good night.” “No gold again.”

“I did, yes. He said it is not unusual for mines to not yield for a time. Patience is required.”

“I'm patient.”

“Yes, you are, Young George. You are indeed.”

“Food? Lee?” Langstrom asks.

“The Chinaman's generosity has been exaggerated. As has his judgment of good character.”

“Gosh. Is it no credit then?” asks George.

“For the moment, no.”

“There's a surprise,” Lorn says.

“Gentlemen, all was not in vain.” Eugene takes the packet from his breast pocket. Holds it high.

George leaps from the bunk. Lorn surges forward. Langstrom stares into the cooking pot as if seeing something hidden from lesser cooks. There is no letter for him. There never is.

George carefully slits open his gummed envelope, is immediately puddly-eyed over his mother's handwriting. The woman must have a scribe's heart for George receives just such a fat letter nearly every week.

Lorn sits on the edge of his bed and hunkers over a slim letter that is stained and battered. Eugene does not offer to read it to him, nor does George. They were told clearly enough the last time that Lorn trusted only Napoleon to read his missives.

“I waited for over an hour, gentlemen,” Eugene says.

George nods. His lips do not cease silently moving. Lorn makes no sign that he has heard Eugene at all. Napoleon politely echoes “an hour.” Langstrom tastes the stew and grimaces.

“It rained. A Frenchman and an American fought with knives near the steps. They were separated before blood was shed. I was fortunate not to be drawn in.”

“Gosh, I'll go next time,” George says. “I don't mind the waiting.”

“I did not mean that I minded the waiting.”

“Did you receive any letters?” Napoleon asks.

“No, I unfortunately did not.”

“Nothing from your wife?” George asks.

“No, nothing on this occasion, though I waited for near two hours in the hail.”

“Thought you said it rained,” Lorn says.

“It rained and then it hailed.”

“I'm sure she's doing swell. I'll pray for her anyway.”

“Thank you, Young George. Thank you, indeed.”

Eugene thinks of the mere three letters Dora has written so far, or rather that Mrs. Smitherton, that epistolary chaperone, has written him in her spidery hand. Young Mr. Hartworth fell asleep in the butter church and slid to the floor. Mrs. Bell delivered Mrs. Hickson's second child. The Sisters of St. Anne have come to see if the Cowichan would make a good home for Indian and half-blood waifs, orphans, and strays. They stepped out of the boat looking like giant crows. Later Jeremiah asked if they had bodies or were merely faces floating in cloth. He was jesting. Or so Dora thought.

Why has Dora not written him twice a week as she promised, as he promised he would write her? At least he has proper excuses. He has been plagued with hindrances, the like of which she cannot imagine. Certainly if Dora were aware of the letter that sits heavy in his breast pocket she would go running for Mrs. Smitherton and her pen. He is avoiding thinking of this letter with all that he can muster. For Mr. Jacobsen has died. Mrs. Jacobsen found him in the pantry among jars of smashed preserves. Shocking, yes. And how difficult it is for her on her own. How lonely. Eugene steps outside with a candle. Sits on the low bench along the wall and smoothes Mrs. Jacobsen's letter over his knee, having crumpled it impulsively upon first reading.

And thus, Mr. Hume, I shall be selling the Hotel Avalon & returning to Toronto. There I intend to use the capital from the sale & the capital which I have saved over the years to open a new & even grander establishment. In this I would like your assistance. I will be plain. I will be frank. Such is my nature. You have not yet married Miss Timmons. You are, in effect, a free man, a bachelor. You may take opportunities should they present themselves.

And so on. Eugene is flattered by the offer. Indeed, he can almost see himself as the guardian of a rosewood bar. He would stock it with spirits from far-flung ports of the empire. There would be ten varieties each of champagne and brandy. He might even stock vodka. Why not? The war with the Russians is barely remembered here. The gentry of Toronto would be his clientele. There would be evenings of uproarious laughter and quieter, more contemplative evenings with adventures related and philosophy discussed. He will wear grey suits for summer. Black for winter. A monocle might not be amiss.

George calls out that supper is ready. Back in the cabin Langstrom carefully ladles the exact small portion of stew onto each plate. Hands a plate to Eugene along with a hard biscuit. Eugene ponders mentioning how he already ate once this day. But why should he, truly? Would his partners mention if they had been treated to a large meal? Would they say: and so please, divide mine among you? Certainly not.

He hunches over his plate and afterwards wipes it clean with his fingers and gives his compliments to Langstrom. He does enjoy Mrs. Jacobsen's company well enough. In certain lights she hardly looks her age. In any case, he is feeling older by the moment. And she might not demand too much in the way of husbandly duties. Stranger unions have been made. It is possible. And he might not have to give Dora up entirely.