Free Reckoning of Boston Jim by Claire Mulligan

for his charity.
    Hills now giving way to cliffs, patches of red earth scoured out of grey stone.
    â€œAh, 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.
    â€œYes, that is the word,” Eugene says with finality and continues his contemplation of the river.
    â€œHow is? How you say it? Your courage this morning?”
    â€œJolly, sir, staying down nicely.”
    â€œWe not long till there.”
    â€œNo, I suppose not.”
    â€œYou are English?”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œYou are to be a miner?”
    â€œYes, only for a time.”
    â€œI am boots.”
    â€œMr., 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.”
    â€œAh, quite so, not boots. Not German.”
    â€œNo, my apologize. This English, it is thick on my tongue. I sell boots. Gumboots. They are needed by miners.”
    â€œI have boots, Herr, Herr . . .”
    â€œSchultheiss.”
    â€œHerr 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.”
    â€œAh, no, I take them to goldfields. No, not I, a pack train. I sell there.” With the flourish of a conjurer the Prussian takes a silver case from out of his vest pocket. Opens it to show Eugene a row of stuffed paper cylinders. “You have tried the Turkish smoke?”
    Eugene grimaces. “I do not indulge in tobacco, sir, I find it dulls the senses.”
    â€œAh, no, it sharps them. It make the breath!” He beats his own considerable chest. “Think it as good thing from your war in Crimea. They are, so, what is the word, gelegen , ah, yes, convenient, a convenient invention. Think, hah, all the stupendous inventions that come next from this American war!”
    Eugene shrugs, is barely listening while Herr Schultheiss expounds on some outlandish plan to make Turkish smokes of his own and sell them in neat little boxes. He will have his name embossed on the cover. “Like to the old Kings. I am to have my names and symbols in all places, so that always the people think, aha, I know the name. It is good name.”
    Eugene finds the idea completely vulgar but at the risk of encouraging further talk says nothing more to this man who is not a gentleman down on his luck at all, but a scheming merchant. At least he can stop Dora’s talk with kisses; at least she knows he rarely has the heart for conversation in the mornings, and only a half-heart for it during the day. He is an evening talker. Surely that is obvious. The paddlewheeler shifts. Reverses. Drifts sideways. Now what is Herr Boots saying? Eugene glances over. The Prussian is pointing straight ahead, his mouth open, letting out a deafening roar.

Seven
    In Rupert’s Land Jedidiah Coom has seen how sled dogs find their hierarchy in the trace. He allows the chain gang to do the same, watches with implacable good cheer from the back of his horse, Kingdom Come, as the prisoners emerge blinking and stiff-legged from their cells at dawn and arrange themselves with growls and shoves at the line of waiting leg irons. Coom nearly always guesses the end sequence of the chain gang correctly.
    The leader is Claude Dupasquier, a mixed blood of labyrinthine ancestry. Directly behind him is his younger brother Marcel. They are