Reckoning of Boston Jim (28 page)

“So this Gulliver spent at least four hours a day with his horses because even though these ones couldn't talk, he liked them better than people. And after a while he'd sit with his wife, but the smell of Yahoos was too much for him and he had to stop up his nose with rue and lavender and tobacco leaves. That's it. The story.”

Girl yawned, stretched out closer to the fire. Held up one finger.

Boston settled down beside her. “One more. That's it, Girl.”

She nodded.

“The lady told me this one. You should be hearing it, since she likes it so much. It's about a poet fellow. He drowned. Had seen it coming . . .”

He looks down. Girl is sleeping. He covers her with his coat, stokes the fire. Now gets into his bedroll. The waves lap noisily at the shore.

“Oh, but he were famous, Mr. Jim. Eggy told me of him. Percy Shelley his name was. He drowned after he saw the ghost of his little girl. Poor mite. He saw his own double, too. There's a German word for that; I think it's German. Eggy would know it. You can ask him someday. Well and so, this double person warned Mr. Shelley about his coming death. It were a premonition, like. That's the word. He was on a boat. His own boat, I'm guessing, and it sank in a terrible storm. I know about terrible storms now and I can't but think how wretched it would be to die like that. His friends found him washed up on the shore. In Spain, it was, or maybe Italy. They sounded like strange folk to me, this Shelley and his friends and their wives, but my Eggy admired them because they weren't afraid of flouting society and all its rules and that. Eggy said takes more courage than fighting battles and the like. They didn't bury the poor man, see. They burned him on the beach, right there where he washed up. Just like they do in India and such. And when it was nearly done his friend, I don't remember the name, but he saw that Shelley's heart didn't burn up—it must have been such a strong heart, don't you think?—and so he snatched it out of the fire and put it in a nice box and gave it to Shelley's widow. They found it with her things when she died, oh, years and years later. That story always sets me going, it does. It's so sad and beautiful, and at the same time, like. I envied Mrs. Shelley when Eggy told me that story. I said I'd never heard anything so romantic. It's like she had some part of his love forever, right there on her mantel.”

≈  ≈  ≈

Boston stokes the fire for the last time. He turns onto his side, his revolver near to hand. Girl stirs and curls into his back. She is a pocket of warmth and not unwelcome, no.

Girl is gone when he wakes to a grey sky. He did not hear her leave. Odd. Usually he sleeps lightly enough to be aware of any movement. He rubs his beard, spits, then nudges the fire. The embers are faintly alive. She must be at her morning stool, must be in the bushes near. His coat is there. The dress as well. It is laid out neatly on a log, the stockings and shoes on the rocks below. It is as if she has melted from within her garments. He calls her name once, twice. He shouts louder and a flock of ducks rises flapping out of the rushes. She must be seeking breakfast—berries or camas, yes, and did not want to dirty her dress. He had warned her not to, after all.

The nearby bush shows no evidence of her passage. He searches in an ever wider circle about their camp. Strips and wades into the water. Searches for a wave of hair, a shadow of thin limbs. There is a faint ringing in his ears, a hollowness in his gut. He curses her, curses the sky, pounds at the water. Back on shore he hauls on his clothes. Again he searches the brush, the nearby forest. Again he calls her name. In the afternoon he spears another fish and eats it raw and with an intense concentration, as if the eating were a test in which the reward was his own life.

The day is windless and hot. He pulls out a few strands of her dark hair from the comb and winds them tight around his thumb. Grips the comb. The teeth bite into his palms. He saw her vulnerability. He should have told her not to stray. He should not have wasted his breath on stories about Raven and Gulliver and that idiotic poet, Shelley. He should have told her of the horrid creatures who lurk at the border of the forest and shore, at the borders between men and beasts and who were worse than any Yahoo. He should have warned her of the Boqs who are hairy and stooped and have penises so long they have to be carried rolled up in their arms, of Matlose—black-bristled, with great claws and a voice so terrible that it alone could kill—of Skookums in all their varieties. Then she would not have strayed off. Would not have dared.

He searches and waits. Searches and waits. Calls until his voice is hoarse. Clouds filter over the sun. The day is drawing to its end. He is searching further and further into the forest. All is shadows and green. All is oddly quiet. A faint crack. He whirls. “Girl!” he shouts.

The bear shuffles toward him, then settles on its haunches. It is a small bear, barely old enough to be on its own. Boston holds his revolver ready. It should run. It should not be looking at him unafraid. Looking at him as if it wants to speak. He knows then, and the knowledge is a hard thrumming in his chest. She did not know her people. Or would not say. She came naked to Petrovich from the forest. She left Boston in the same manner. It is what they did sometimes, the bear people. Traded off their skins and tried on those of a human for a time. It is evident enough that of all the animals the bear is the best at adopting human form. Anyone can see how they favour human company, how they favour human food. Anyone can see how a skinned bear has a human shape.

“You shoulda told me. Wouldn't of taken you then. Bear people aren't what the lady needs.”

He thrusts his revolver back through his belt. She became caught in the human world. It happens to those who are too young. At least she is fine, after a fashion, at least she did not wander off in search of food, become lost, meet some bitter end. No.

“Go on back to your people, then. Go on then. GO!”

She dashes off. For a while he hears her crashing through the bush. And then the forest is still. No breeze and no sound excepting his own harsh breathing.

≈  ≈  ≈

He stays that night by the shore and does not sleep. It is as if he is mired there, unable to move forward, unable to move back. He feeds the fire but he does not eat. He has failed, yet again, and so again he relives the day he met the Dora woman. He sees the Dora woman returning the tobacco pouch. Hears the words “for your birthday, like,” as clearly as if she were whispering them in his ear.

A second night comes on. Still he has not eaten, nor slept. Her stories of London parade before him until he finally steps firmly onto the cobbled street. He doesn't move, cannot move. He is not one for astonishment, and yet. . . .The crowd presses into him. He stumbles forward. “Get outta the way, ye bloody idjit!” someone yells. There are the Hindu tract sellers she spoke of, the piemen, the muffin men, the match girls, the bird sellers. There are the blind beggars, the crippled beggars, the drink-sodden beggars. There are the women who dance on stilts, there the street orchestras. He walks on haltingly past the gin shops and shoe sellers, the rag and bone shops, past shadow men who lounge against the dank walls and watch him intently, without curiosity. The smells are of shit and smoke, of rotting things, of sweat, of ash. He knows such smells, but here all are intensified, as if it were here that such odours were born. Of other smells he has no reference. And the noise! All around costermongers are crying out their wares amid the clopping and rumbling of innumerable carriages and carts, amid the pipes and organs of the musicians. A boy passes him at a half run. He is holding up a tract, throwing out promises of seduction, murder, betrayal.

He turns 'round in bewilderment and it is a night in early winter. Newcut market now battles with the light the Dora woman so adores: tallow candles, grease lamps, tin lamps cut with stars and angels, the stoves of the chestnut men glowing red. Glowing globes of blue and green dangle from the roofs of coffee vendors where men in top hats and long coats converse with women whose skirts are hiked to their ankles.

He knows, somehow, where he must go. Finds the narrow street where the roofs of the opposing buildings lean together, nearly touching. Finds the drapery store. The door is thrown open. The interior is smaller than the Dora woman suggested. Her mother is folding a length of white cloth behind the high counter, a paraffin lamp beside her. She is wrapped in several shawls. She is comely, according to the white men's standards. Her skin is white, against the dark shine of her hair. Her throat is long. Her eyes wide. Does she look, as Dora insisted, as might a queen? Boston cannot compare, having never seen a queen in the flesh before. There. Coming along the street. Dora's father. So it is before her father's misfortune. A large man turning to fat, he holds his own in the street. Others part around him, return his hearty greetings. Boston draws back into the shadows. Dora walks beside her father. She is half-grown; her hair hangs down her back in a pale mat. She is chatting and showing her white teeth. She holds her father's hand. He is grinning also, nodding. He is also proud. Of her, of himself, of the world he inhabits. Dora's mother is now at the doorway. Dora's father throws an arm about her, kisses her cheek. “My dove, my wife.” And then to Dora, “Ah, my favourite girl. Promise me you'll have a marriage as blessed as ours then, eh?”

“I will, I promise,” Dora says fervently. And then these three lock arms about each other so that they block the doorway, are as one dark form.

The Dora woman never spoke of such a scene. Boston grips the wooden post beside him. A splinter drives into his thumb. The pain is sharp and true. He is truly here, then. He is about to step forward and ask this Dora what she wants of him when the ground shifts and he is back again at the shore where he lost Girl.

Never has he fallen into memories. His own or others'. Never has he heard of it happening before. Equata said that in her dreams she travelled to the lands of King George's Men. There she saw spires piercing the clouds, saw men of bronze, and houses large enough for ten thousand families, saw children pleading before wheeled boxes made of gold and led by four-legged beasts that were larger than bears. But it was the present Equata saw; never had she claimed to fall into the past, nor into another's memories.

He studies his thumb by the light of the fire. Yanks the splinter from it.

All through that night he tries to fall into her memories again. But he cannot. Dawn is now a red smudge over the trees. He is in this time, in this world. And yet a message must lie in the scene he witnessed between the Dora woman and her parents. What of the endearments? The embrace? Her promise to have a blessed marriage?

“He's all alone on that road, Mr. Jim, with no one to watch out for him. Riches are nothing if you're dead. Mr. Hume home with me, that's all I'm wanting. I'd be so perfectly happy then.” Five times she mentioned her husband, always with sighs and sad smiles. She returned what was precious to him. He must return what is precious to her. An action for an action. Boston was a fool not to have realized this before, to have wasted his time on gimcracks, on Girl even. It will put all back in balance. He stands. It is good to know such absolute resolve.

A country stroll from Quesnel to Barkerville? What cretin told him this? Damn his eyes. Damn him and his bloody damned relations to the tenth generation.

“Arie, please, I beg you. Do not fail me now. I'll fête you with the finest oats, with a warm stable, mash. Golden bloody horseshoes, muleshoes.” Eugene is speaking urgently, softly, swallowing his panic. He must for her sake.

His boots are braced in a labyrinthine fall of logs that is slick with moss and smashed slugs. He yanks on her bridle with one hand; his other has hold of a stunted, twisted tree. All about him are plants with oily leaves and sickly yellow flowers. Carrion eaters? He has heard of such diabolical plants. Likely they entice the unwary with some intoxicating vapour. Only this could explain how they stumbled off the main path and came to this. Eugene had faithfully followed the wavering needle of his compass. He had not led them astray.

≈  ≈  ≈

It is no use. The bog has her. She is up to her belly now. She is exhausted from her thrashing and rimmed with sweat and her eyes roll in panic.

They are not alone in their predicament. Dotted about them are dead horses, mules, cattle, even a moose. Many are mired upright so that it seems they might totter on forward at any moment, decayed and fly infested and reeking like some hellish visitation.

“Goddamnit! Bloody hell. Fuck!” Eugene grapples with the supplies on Ariadne's back, nearly tumbles into the bog himself, so far does he have to lean. He unlashes the trunks and sacks. Struggles under their cumbersome weight, finally thrusts them clanking and thudding into the bush. The bandana falls from his face and he inhales innumerable flies. Gags from this and from the stench of rot. Would vomit if he had anything left in his belly.

He looks upward and apologizes profusely for his lack of observance to Sundays, his poor attendance at church, his belief in luck over prayer. Grey clouds stretch apart in a high wind. He shuts his eyes. Hears Ariadne's laboured breathing and his own, hears the quarrelling of the birds, the hellish symphony of the mosquitoes and black flies, feels the bite of those miniscule demons that tear hunks out of a man's flesh, that could no doubt flay him slowly alive.

≈  ≈  ≈

He left the road crew three mornings ago. Bid farewell to George Bowson and Langstrom and arranged to meet up with them in two weeks' time in Camerontown. Promised to stake out a fine claim. Good that he was going early, they all agreed. It was already the second week of July. The season had already begun.

He disembarked from the steamer at Quesnel, a town so full of celestials he might have disembarked at Canton. He walked with a party of Cornishmen for the first day. The trail was a thin slash through murky forests, over logs and stumps. At times the mud was knee-deep. Other trails led off from this so-called main trail. Did prospectors make these? he wondered. Or did the beasts in these parts? Didn't Mr. Barrymore mention a bear? Yes. Ursus something or other. They are big as bulls, vicious as lions. Are man-eaters. Likely they prefer English flesh to all others.