Reckoning of Boston Jim

by Claire Mulligan

  George dashes tears from his eyes and nods.

  Where has Eugene found the courage? Though how can it be courage while he is shaking, while he is battling bile and tears? Ah, but he can act the part. Has always acted a part.

  They jam the candle into a crevice and begin to claw at the rubble. Eugene is oblivious to the splinters driving into his hands, the pounding in his head. He hauls aside a beam, marvelling at his own strength. George runs back for the shovels and mattocks. They hack away until they hear faint shouting from the other side of the rubble. Eugene ceases his labours. Holds his ragged breath. The shouting grows louder.

  “Hello! Hello!” Eugene calls. “We’re alive, boys! But Lorn’s buried. So dig! Dig! The tunnel may cave again!”

  “Please, Mr. Hume! Quiet. We’re trying to listen for him.”

  “That you, Napoleon?”

  “Yes. Quiet, please!”

  “Quiet,” Eugene orders George.

  A timber shifts. Dirt and mud flow over their boots. It is a disaster of Eugene’s making. He is as certain of it as if he called up the storm like some warlock. He led them here, the lot of them. It was his enthusiasm. His blindness in the face of the obvious. And now Lorn. Poor Lorn! Lorn who saved him from the demon bog, who nurtured him like a child. This is his thanks.

  “Here, damnit, here!” The voice comes faintly from the right. George presses his hands together in prayer.

  “Be easy. Careful. We do not know his condition,” Napoleon calls.

  “Yes, be careful now, George,” Eugene says and has a vision of Lorn stabbed with a shovel, crushed by an ill-moved timber. They work as methodically as possible, speaking little except to call to Lorn from time to time. Lorn answers with curses, with demands to hurry up. A current of air. Eugene spots a hand reaching over the top of the rubble. Langstrom?

  “We’re nearly there!” Eugene shouts. Now sees Napoleon backed by a font of lantern light. He is breathing heavily and there is a tightness along his jaw. Aside from that his face is, as usual, surprisingly calm.

  Lorn is face-down. They uncover his thighs, his shoulders, his head over which his hands are clasped. His cheeks are grooved with scratches. But he breathes. He breathes in Napoleon’s arms, is standing with the help of steadying hands. “I’ll be Goddamned. I ain’t dead.”

  “The timbers formed a bridge over you,” Eugene says.

  “Thank the good Lord,” George says.

  “Amen,” Lorn says, as does Napoleon, then Langstrom. No one is thanking Eugene.

  “Storm! Finish!” Langstrom yells as he looks up the shaft. He and Napoleon help Lorn to the ladder. Lorn limps and pauses, limps and pauses. Eugene and George follow close behind. The enormity of the close call is only now becoming apparent to Eugene. They all could have been buried alive. Yes, of course, they must give thanks as George is insisting. They will all praise the Lord for delivering them. It is enough to make a faithful churchgoer of him, though if the Lord truly had his interests in mind, a little gold might help. He looks back to the pile of rubble. It must be cleared. The walls must be reinforced. More futile work. This whole operation is pure foolishness. He will leave in the night and return to Dora. In time he will send the money to Lorn and Napoleon for their shares. He will sell all he has to do so. It will be as he promised. For the claim will not prove up. Cannot.

  “Maybe we could go ’round it, Doc,” George says, following Eugene’s despairing gaze.

  “What?”

  “Go ’round. Make a bend. What did I say? It wasn’t a joke.”

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  They clamber out of the shaft. The storm has passed as quickly as it came. Patches of sun through the cloud. Glistening leaves. An earthen smell. Eugene strides into the centre of the stream. He is filthy, soaked, cold to his very bones, and yet. Yet! That knoll ’round which the stream bends. Why had he not noticed it before?

  The others stand at the bank. Look at each other, then to Eugene. Lorn eases himself onto a rock and Napoleon attends to his foot. George sways with hands clasped. Langstrom lights his pipe. Takes a great inhale.

  “Picture it, gentlemen,” Eugene says. “A thousand years ago. Two. Three.”

  “Before the Flood?” George asks.

  “That I could not say. And this mountain which shadows us, it did not bear the concave shape it does now.”

  “A what shape?” Lorn asks.

  “Concave. Inward. Dished out,” Napoleon says dubiously.

  “Exactly. You see, once this mountain was as whole and round as the rest about. And then, a great torrent. Days of relentless rain such as we have had. Though worse, assuredly worse.”

  “During the Flood, then?”

  “No, George, no. It was a great torrent, not as severe as Noah’s Flood, but severe enough to cause the side of the mountain to slide as does an ill-cooked pudding.”

  “A pudding would be grand. I wouldn’t care if it were cooked,” George says.

  “Pudding? Eat?” Langstrom asks.

  “It is merely an analogy, gentlemen. Think of a moulded pudding, one that stands upright like so and if it does not set properly it slides and . . . and the comparison matters not. What matters is that this knoll was once a part of that mountain until it slid into the depression below, burying the path of the stream that once ran straight. The stream then angled itself past it.”

  The others stare at the mountain, the knoll, Eugene.

  “Do you mean that the old stream bed would have travelled beneath the knoll, and not where we’ve been digging?” This from Napoleon.

  “Yes!” Eugene shouts. “I can see it as clearly as if the earth were an open book. The debris slid into the hollow. That is where the gold is, gentlemen. The motherlode. It has collected there over the hundreds of centuries, the thousands. It is there, awaiting us like Briar Rose awaited her prince.”

  “Who?” George asks.

  “It’s an old story. Old as the hills.”

  “I cursed, Doc. I took the Lord’s name in vain.”

  “Indeed. Let’s take it as a good luck sign, shall we?”

  Twenty-Nine

  Do you have a wife, Mr. Jim?” the Dora woman asked.

  “No.”

  “Have you ever had a wife, then?”

  “No,” he said and she looked as astonished as if he’d said he’d never eaten, never breathed.

  When he returns he might tell the Dora woman of Kloo-yah. But then she might well ask if he loved her. Women are free enough with that word. No, he will not speak of Kloo-yah to Dora. Speaking of her will only bring on a surround of memory. But even as he decides this, Kloo-yah is wrought whole in his mind. Boston curses. She looks precisely as she did one morning in the time when the salmon were returning to the river.

  She sits on the floor of the trade room and quietly weeps. She wears a finely woven dress of cedar bark and a cape made from no less than a four-point trade blanket. Her forehead is flattened and trade beads are woven into her hair, though even without these enhancements she would have been fine enough to look upon. Boston has seen her before, several times, though the first image that comes to his mind is that of her holding tight to a giddee dog pup, its skin pink and scabrous.

  She has nothing for trade. Still, he gives her water and some hard tack. She eats in delicate bites though it is obvious from her shaking that she is wracked with hunger. While she eats, Boston notices that her nails are rimmed with blood and her hands scratched and swollen and raw.

  “I will stay here now,” she says in her language.

  Boston keeps about his business as if he has not heard her. After she has finished the water and hard tack he locks the trade room and leads her back to the village. She says nothing, nor does she take her eyes from the ground as they walk past the canoes drawn up on the shore, past the welcome figures, the racks of drying salmon, the great square houses with their flags of smoke and tall carved figures before the rounded doors. She glances only at the three sisters, the three great pillars that stand
out in the waves at the end of the bay.

  The People stare as they pass. An old woman slaps a child’s pointing hand. Two slaves, their hair cut short, fall silent and draw back.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  The house where the headman lives is larger than any other. Boston ducks through the doorway; Kloo-yah follows. Women are cooking at the numerous hearths or weaving mats and clothing. The cross poles above are hung with dried herring, fern roots, fishing hooks, and packs of roe and berries. Black and red painted boxes line the walls and baskets are scattered here and there. The place is thick with the smell of cedar smoke and fish, with the sound of rocks hissing into pots and of children crying and calling out, and with the slow beating of a drum.

  The headman’s hair is grey and he wears a cloak of otter fur, a rare thing now, for it is otter fur the Whitemen covet most of all. He gestures to the raised bench beside his hearth. Boston sits and Kloo-yah stands behind him, still as a house post, silent as a shadow. A wife hands Boston a platter of whale blubber and small fish heads and a bowl of berries soaked in oolichan oil. He eats these delicacies and afterwards the wife hands him cedar strips and a bowl of water with which to wash his hands. The wife offers nothing to Kloo-yah. Does not look to her, nor speak to her.

  The headman hands him a pipe and some good trade tobacco. They talk of the abundance this year of the black clam, of the impending ceremonies to thank the salmon for returning to the rivers. Boston asks after the headman’s family and the headman tells him that he is still grieving for his niece. She was to be married to a man from a neighbouring village when she was wracked by a strange fever. She ranted in a voice that was not her own, in a language they had never heard. Equata came and made her best chants and best tonics but all to no avail. Ah, but Kloo-yah had always been strange, one whose spirit wandered, Equata said, and often inhabited the trees and waves. Did she not prefer to gather food alone in the forest though this was dangerous? Was she not always more fond of the sea than was normal for a girl? And she had never liked the winter entertainments, but preferred ever to be on her own, staring at something they could not see. She was of another realm and so it was no surprise when she was called away. They gave her full ceremony and dressed her in fine garments and folded her into a box and covered it with a white blanket and left it high in a tree. Nearby they hung trinkets and calicos and torn trade blankets. All was done according to tradition. The women had lamented, the songs had been sung. Thus it was to the horror of all when banging and screaming was heard from the box. Equata said her chants but the One-who-had-been-Kloo-yah broke free. She lingered in the village for several days, one of those who are too stubborn to accept that they have died, and so must be convinced of it. They ignored her until she faded. The headman himself had seen her fade. Does Boston see her now? Is she visible to him?

  Boston says that he does see her now. That she is standing behind him.

  The headman is quiet, then says “She will fade for you in time also. Merely assure yourself over and again that she is a ghost.”

  Sweat trickles down Kloo-yah’s cheek. Her wrists show red marking where her bangles have rubbed. Her arms and hands are scratched. She smells as all the People do, of salmon and cedar, and of the grease they use in their hair. She does not seem about to fade, not at all.

  Boson gives his formal farewells. Gestures to Kloo-yah. They are nearly out the door when the headman calls to Boston.

  “Can she hear you when you speak?”

  “Can. Yes.”

  “Then tell her I will see her soon. Tell her that I am old and that soon I, too, will make the journey. Tell her I will bring her that which she loves—a young dog and the ladle carved by her brother, and berry cakes and vermilion paint.”

  Once within the fort walls Kloo-yah shows him the pulse of veins at her wrist. “I am not dead.”

  “No.”

  “I will stay here. I will cook for you and lie with you.”

  “Don’t like pointless talking. Should know that.”

  “Nor do I,” she says and places her hand on his arm.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  Later Illdare says: “You know how I feel about consorting with the women of the Village. It leads only to trouble.”

  “Kloo-yah not like others.”

  Illdare snorted at this. “No. But neither is she your wife. No formal exchanges have been made.”

  “Can’t. The People don’t see her.”

  “Yes, the circumstances are unusual. Damned superstitions. Look, Jim, I will allow this as a favour to you, but only if you and your concubine live outside the fort walls. Is that clear?”

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  It is as if the world were holding its breath, not only him. He lies very still at first because it is possible that she is one of the dead as the People claim. To embrace her would be to embrace death. He has heard the stories; he knows as much. She will lull him to sleep and feast on the marrow of his bones.

  She smoothes her hand over his chest, as if to wipe it clean of the scars. What does it matter if she is something not entirely human? There is some comfort in knowing she is different from all others, as he himself is, that she, too, by some turn of fate, has been exiled from the human realm. In the nights that follow he studies the seams of her hands and feet, the arc of her brows and the shape of her ears. He studies them closely because, unlike most things, he wants them etched firmly in his memory.

  Thirty

  Mary. A whiskey. For me. I friendly.”

  “Kah Madame Blanc?”

  “Pus iktah?”

  Boston tells her why. The woman flounces out her dress of crimson and black. She once was a woman of status; the tattoos on her hands tell of it. She was once possessed of beauty; the pox marks on her cheeks cannot wholly destroy it.

  “Klootchmen kimta kloshe, wikna?” she says loudly, as if daring any man to refute her saying that Indian women are better than white.

  “Kunje yahka chahko, Madame Blanc?”

  “Nekhwa buy me whiskey, then tell you.”

  Boston buys her a whiskey and she tells him that Madame Blanc will come when she pleases, then laughs and moves off to more welcoming customers. A large woman in breeches slaps a hand of cards on a table. The men haul back as if faced with a venomous snake. She is Indian as well, or partly so. Of the Tlingits, Boston guesses, as her broad gestures, her straight stares, are common to their women.

  Faces turn upward. Madame Blanc descends from the stairs behind the bar. She is corpulent and coarse-featured. Her dress is of gauzy yellows, purple lace, and silky greens. Her hair is a golden construction of loops and waves, is a beacon in the overall drabness of Barkerville’s Denby saloon. She sits laboriously at a table in the corner from which the shifting clutch of men can be best surveyed. She notices Boston’s stare, does not shift her eyes from his, nor blink. Does not, unlike most, seem uncomfortable under his full gaze. She smiles knowingly, lifts two beringed fingers.

  Boston approaches, takes off his hat. “Ma’am.”

  “Please, dear boy, sit yourself here.” She has small red-painted lips. Her voice has the cadence of the Southern States.

  He sits with his hands on his knees. Madame Blanc glances at his fingers. They are stained with ink. “You are interested in Mary? I must tell you she is not the most tractable. I do have also a Mabel and a Mavis. Clean girls, none of them cannibals.” She smiles sweetly.

  Boston lifts his chin to indicate Madame Blanc herself.

  She breaks out a fan patterned with Chinese palaces and trees in pink bloom. “Madame Blanc is retired, respectable if you please. If it is a white woman you require, Miss Anna, our splendid card player could pass well enough.”

  Boston looks again at Madame Blanc. Unfortunate that her eyes are not in the same realm of blue as the Dora woman’s. Hers are the blue of a summer sky. The eyes of Madame Blanc are the grey of wet slate, of winter clouds.

  “And Mariette. She is occupied at the moment. She is the finest I can offer. She learned he
r skills as the mistress of a Montreal merchant. Her father was a Jesuit sent to convert her people to the book. Is not that an enticing lineage? Is not it enticing to imagine a conversion taking place between a savage and a man of the holy cloth? Though not the one the holy man intended. Not at all.”

  “You.”

  Madame Blanc strokes a stiff curl. She leans close to Boston, whispers in a tone that carries to his ear alone: “You flatter me. Prefer a woman of some substance do you? Or something motherly? Or perhaps something of a darker bent? Tell me, whisper it in your dear Malva’s ear. Perhaps something can be arranged. Nothing will surprise Malva Blanc, I promise you that. And not to worry, dear boy, keeping secrets is my own personal commandment.”

  A man bumps against their table. Apologizes in Dutch, stumbles on. Boston whispers in her ear though his eyes remain fixed on the wooden table, the lines in the grain indicating the uncountable passing of years. She smells strongly of violets.

  “My dear boy, I am truly intrigued.” She cites a hefty price.

  Boston counters. Madame Blanc mentions that in New Orleans in her days of fame she could ask five times such a fee and still be able to pick and choose. Boston holds. Madame Blanc offers a price slightly lower. Boston counters again, but she will no longer bargain. She looks over his head at the bull-necked man who has been awaiting her signal. Boston agrees to her price, knowing he has little choice, for she has seen a need in him as clear as if he has been branded.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  The room is plainly furnished and criss-crossed with drafts. A lamp has been lit though it is not yet dark. “Shall I sit here? Would such a position please you?”

  Boston nods. Madame Blanc draws the curtains and settles in the chair by the window. She sets the lamp on the table near to it. Her hooped skirts are so voluminous that they hide the chair entirely, make it seem as if Madame Blanc is sitting on an uphold of air.

  Boston hands her the pages and sits on the edge of the bed, there being no other place. She strokes the pages in her lap. “And these are your writings?”