Reckoning of Boston Jim (7 page)

The Italian explains in broken English that he is tired, that he has had enough.

“Enough? Is that what you will say when you are digging for your gold. Enough! Oh, I cannot dig any longer. I cannot pan. I am so weary. And all the while the gold lies beneath your boots. All the while it shimmers just beyond your reach because you have had, what? Enough! Never!”

“That's telling him!”

“
Genugh? Nein!
”

“
Bastante? Nunca!
”

“
Assez? Non!
”

The Italian stares at them blearily, shambles now to the bar where among the men is a large quantity of Les Canadiens in scarlet vests, their boots on the rails, their faces veiled in pipe smoke, talking in the way of conspirators.

“What shall we call our mines then?” Eugene asks. “Ah, better. A contest. We shall ask the captain to choose the best. Each man put in a . . . a greenback is it? The winner takes all.”

The men debate, up it to two dollars each, then wrestle money from pockets.

The German volunteers to search for the captain. “Stupendous! Marvellous!” he says as he ambles off.

“And you, sir? What of you?” Eugene asks the sad-faced man who has just entered. “Shall we call your mine The-Close-at-Hand?” The man scowls, makes a rude gesture at which Eugene only laughs. Poor bastard. Apparently he had thought he would be let off directly at the mines. Did not realize there was a five hundred mile march before him. “Quite so, but one should be better informed. One should be better prepared,” Eugene says this quietly, so as not to be heard, not a difficult feat as words, unless loudly spoken, are being swept up in the general din of the festive.

The German returns with a man whose uncovered head shows a scalp afflicted with a rash. “The Captain not come. But Mr. Fere, he is the purser, he'll make it for a dollar, to take out the winnings.”

The others agree and then the ludicrous foul-mouthed American shouts: “The Jessica Bell!”

Eugene stays with his original choice—The Croesus Cache. The Welsh brothers come up with Hawddamor. A Frenchman calls out Marseille. A Spaniard, Santa Maria. The German begs off, saying something about boots. He settles back with a cough and watches the proceedings with a lively interest, as if he had been the one to think of the contest entirely.

The purser stares at them sourly. Eugene knows he has lost already. He decided on The Croesus Cache in the assumption that the captain, teeth-picking aside, would have some education. But how would this grey-faced drone know of an ancient king said to have incalculable wealth? Ah, well, he'll know less of some backwater French city trod on by history and happenstance. And he does not seem a religious man either, given the cursing Eugene heard from him earlier. The Spaniard is out, then. And by the way he stared at the Welsh brothers, Eugene doubts he has time for the delightful, mysterious rhythms of languages not his own.

“The Jessica Bell. I'll be picking that one. Women's what we're needing 'round here. Not more men with their heads stuck in the clouds.”

“I knew it,” Eugene says. “To women. The lovely devils. Congratulations Mr. . . . Mr.?”

“Oswald. Ain't Mr. Nothing. Oswald is god-blamed all.”

“Ah, then congratulations, Oswald.” Eugene raises his glass. The American takes little note of this sportsmanship. Instead he scoops up his winnings, nearly forgetting to give the dollar to the purser who is standing by with one long hand open.

“A song now, friends!” Eugene shouts.

Faintly as tolls the ev'ng chimes

Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time

Soon as the woods on shore look dim,

We'll sing at ta da, ta da, Ah, hell

Row, brothers, row, the streams runs fast

The rapids are near, and the daylight's gone, no,

past, the daylight's past.

He sings the lyrics more or less on his own, though the others heartily join in the chorus. The German grabs one of the Welsh brothers and leads him in a dance. The Welshman grimly follows his steps. Puffs of soot rise under their boots. Les Canadiens thump their glasses, then join in the dancing. Oswald pulls out a mouth harp and plays, to Eugene's surprise, not badly at all.

There are more songs, more drinks, more dancing. The saloon floor shudders, rocks. Eugene learns a Scottish jig, a Canadian reel. The German is his partner now. The man insists on leading, treads heavily on Eugene's boots, smells of camphor and mint. Eugene begs off and grabs a jug that is being passed about. His glass. Damn. Where? Ah, well. He tilts the jug back, looks full into a lamp that sways as if in gentle disapproval. This night is nearly as splendid as that soiree aboard the
SS
Grappler
. As usual, Dora cared little for propriety, nor did she notice the restlessness of her audience as she sang penny-sheet songs loudly and off-key, not minding that her hoops were hiked high to one side as if a great hook were attempting to hoist her into the sky. Ah, but then how they danced! She was not leaving his arms. Not ever. How sure he was! They kissed shamelessly. It was as if their love had woven a chrysalis about them. Her lips tasted of ginger beer, her throat of sea air, her hair of the precious, rare lemons he had given her earlier, holding one in each hand, his thumbs stroking their nubs. She grasped them and laughed and then sliced them full open and squeezed the juice through her hair to make it shine ever more golden. He had never thought of himself as lascivious until then.

“I didn't dare say, but we met before, you and me,” she told him that night. He said, yes, in his dreams. She told him, no, in London. He had been with some friends in Newcut market. He had dropped to his knees when he saw her and begged her to come to the colonies with him. Eugene said it was quite likely. He and the fellows often went slumming, begging kisses from comely girls in not-so-comely streets. It was what many students did.

She looked so disappointed that Eugene explained hastily that he was jesting. Of course he remembered her. He used the word
fate
. He used the word
destiny
. Even the phrase
love at first glance
.

≈  ≈  ≈

He takes another drink, stares at Oswald to erase the thoughts of Dora, to ease the hardness in his crotch.

The night wears on until Eugene is nearly alone in the saloon. He braces himself against the faint shifting of the paddlewheeler, plans how best to navigate the stairs to the bunks below. He has overdone it, will pay dearly tomorrow. But it was worth it, surely, to forge a few friendships on the way to the goldfields. The Italian would make a fine partner. See his hands? Size of shovels. As for the Welshmen, they look as if they were born underground. That makes four, himself included. Perhaps a carpenter or two. No more needed than that. Keep a balance between profit and practicality.

Eugene sings: “Dora! Dora! My adored, my adorable Dora. We'll be rich as Croesus. We'll be Mr. and Mrs. Midas. Oh, give me your golden heart.”

“Shut your bloody caterwauling!”

Eugene peers down the stairwell. “What, ho, a fellow Londoner is it? You've been hiding good man. Come up for a song.”

“You'll be singing a fucking dirge if you don't bloody well shut it.”

There is laughter, and
hear hears
.

Eugene settles for humming. Goes out on the deck, steadies himself and walks, hand on rail. Good that he is not as his father was. Eugene can hold his drink, does not transform from a quiet gentleman into a choleric, violent, incoherent lie-about. When in his cups, Eugene is merely more Eugene-like—more talkative, friendly, more witty, more ready with songs and observations.

The ragged line of mountains is faintly agleam with snow. Eugene points, though there is no one to note, how the moon is cradled in the antlers affixed to the wheelhouse. On the foredeck the Indians, Coloureds, and Chinamen huddle among the cargo. Poor devils. The deck there was hot as pokers this morning what with the boilers beneath going full throttle. He had stood there for two minutes in his socks before jigging and cursing, much to the amusement of the Missouri men who had bet him a dollar that he could not outlast one of their own. He had, however, and has the dollar still in his pocket to prove it.

Chill in the air. Foredeck must be tomb-cool now, what with the boilers shut down for the night. He knows the feeling, hot and cold, hot and cold, never anything in between.

≈  ≈  ≈

Eugene wakes to a high-pitched whistle. A jarring sends him near tumbling to the floor. Whiffs of whiskey and malodorous socks.

“Scuse it,” says his neighbour, jumping from the bunk above, his boots grazing Eugene's head. The man blurs, solidifies. The American. Damn him. Eugene's head pounds and he has a raging thirst. Never again. Not that rotgut. What was in that jug, not tanglewood surely? He has vowed never to drink that insidious local brew. Ah, well, at least he drinks from a glass from time to time, not like these others sprawled about, snoring and gabbling, bottle suckers to the last.

On deck the air is hardly finer, what with the steamer billowing out smoke as it surges ahead. The men jar against him, drum their fists on the rail and call for greater speed. Eugene would rather they call for greater caution, has heard tales of boilers exploding, men and animals sent sky-high, the river stained with blood, choked with flotsam and gore. He sighs. The camaraderie of last night is gone. Each man is now a competitor of the other. Each man may stake the ground the other should have staked. Take his gold. Take his glorious future.

The currents coil through the grey-green river. He tries to find this mesmerizing. Would like to be mesmerized just now. They pass an Indian village on the bank—wood smoke, bark-snarl of dogs, shouts of children running to see them pass. Children everywhere the same, not wanting to miss an event, wanting to be the ones to say: “Did you see?” “You won't believe.” Eugene waves to them, dredges up a sense of wonder. A fine day after all, splinters of sun through pale low clouds. A promise of warmth later on. Rounded hills on either side now, pines clinging there. He looks to the bow and sees the suggestion of some great thing gliding by. It is longer than a billiard table, white as bone. Sturgeon? Whale? The vastness of the place astounds him, as if everything is stretched beyond the scale of imagining. Yesterday afternoon they passed through an enormous flat valley hemmed by white-capped mountains. The trees there were so tall it was easy to imagine that, like Jack the giant killer, a man could climb and climb until he reached another world entirely. He saw marshes large as small seas, and bogs aswirl with enough birds to blacken the sun.

In comparison the swathes of new-cleared land were laughable, minute. A few stumps, ten feet across or more, were charred and smouldering. Two men worked a cross saw, and a woman without her crinolines heaved an axe at nothing that he could see, the immensity of it all, he supposed, the futile task ahead. He sent out his sympathy with a wave for he knew the feeling well, had had to fight the impulse to cut and run when he and Dora first arrived in the Cowichan. One hundred and sixty acres, yes, but of trees two hundred, three hundred feet high, of impenetrable bramble, of wolf dens and worse. Impossible to imagine it transformed into the rolling hillsides of England, dotted with sheep and divided neatly with fences. He felt an interloper. And then the neighbours coming to assist, if neighbours are what one could call people who lived miles away, beyond sight. But there they were, twenty of them at the least. Together they hacked at the trees, tore up stumps, sang songs to keep up their strength. The women cooked great pots of salmon stew, brought out bannock, pie, and ale, blessed ale. Enough was cleared so that he and Dora could plant a garden and build a cabin. “Don't worry, dear, we help each other,” Mrs. Smitherton said each time Dora proclaimed her gratitude. It was as if Dora did not comprehend that they would be called upon in return. Eugene is wiser in this regard and has already decided that when he returns, flush with gold, he will hire a man to return help with the harvesting rounds, with any roof-raising for new settlers. For after this excursion, he intends to live as a gentleman should. He will congratulate others on their labours. He will pay them generously and they will touch their hats when he and Dora pass in a carriage and four. Perhaps in time he will be known for his charity.

Hills now giving way to cliffs, patches of red earth scoured out of grey stone.

“Ah, this wind, it not good for, what is the word? Constitution, yes?”

Eugene blinks and straightens. The remains of breakfast adorn the man's sand-coloured whiskers. Ah, yes, the German from last night's festivities. In the light of morning his grinning, fleshy face shows evidence of powder, his incongruous dress-clothes evidence of long wear.

“Yes, that is the word,” Eugene says with finality and continues his contemplation of the river.

“How is? How you say it? Your courage this morning?”

“Jolly, sir, staying down nicely.”

“We not long till there.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“You are English?”

“I am a Londoner,” Eugene says, thoroughly irritated now with the man's persistent cheer, the persistent thumping in his own head that nearly matches that of the paddlewheel.

“You are to be a miner?”

“Yes, only for a time.”

“I am boots.”

“Mr., rather Herr Boots, yes, of course, we met last night. You are the German. Now if you . . .”

The man laughs uproariously. Wipes his eyes. “Oh, I am sorry. No, my name is not Boots. My name it is Matias Schultheiss. And I am Prussian.”

“Ah, quite so, not boots. Not German.”

“No, my apologize. This English, it is thick on my tongue. I sell boots. Gumboots. They are needed by miners.”

“I have boots, Herr, Herr . . .”

“Schultheiss.”

“Herr Schultheiss. Quite so, and here they are, at the end of my feet. Made by a boot fitter in Victoria. I have, I assure you, no need for more.”