Free Reckoning of Boston Jim by Claire Mulligan Page B

silver plate and small mantel clocks and a profusion of jewellery, most of which was returned to its grateful owners. Coom cannot recall the length of his sentence. Not that it matters. He is the sort who will spend half his life in jail. Bred in the bone, it must be, when one starts thieving so young.
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    Today, the third of June, these eight are breaking rock. They swing their pickaxes in a sidewise motion so as not to split the skull of the man behind them. “It has happened before,” Coom warns, and chuckles at the remembrance. Later they use the rock to fill in the potholes that have appeared after the days of hard rain. Some of these potholes are posted with the warning bottom not found and are a mystery to learned men, though children say they are the wellsprings of the underworld, and play a game of leaping across, Indian and white children both.
    Sunset and the hour arrives for Coom to escort them back to Bastion Square. “A little singing, boys, to lift the spirits of these good townspeople who have to see the sorry lot of you. Come on, boys, Abide with me, for it is toward evening and the day is far spent . . . .”
    His charges, except for the Dupasquier brothers, except for Boston, join in half-heartedly, not wanting the whip on their backs.
    â€œGod keep you well,” Coom calls as the gates of Bastion Square close behind them.
    â€œAnd goddamn you to hell,” the Dupasquier brothers say, once Coom is out of earshot.
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    The cell of the Dupasquier brothers has rush mats and high barred windows and a table with chairs. Boston’s cell is no more than four paces long and eight wide. It is dank. Rats rustle in the reeking straw. At least he does not have to share his cell, as Farrow and Toolie do. If he were forced to share with the likes of McBride or Petrovich he might well have to thrash them and so extend his visit. Even now Petrovich is lamenting for good whiskey and McBride is berating Enoch Handel, the black bastard prick, and questioning over and over what kind of justice would give him, a Whiteman, an equal sentence. Finally one of the Dupasquiers tells McBride to stop his whining or he’ll cut his throat. At this Handel laughs, enraging McBride so greatly that he batters at the walls of his cell.
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    The jailer snuffs out the corridor lamps. Boston paces, his legs light after the leg irons. Smashed Kines’ tawdry automaton did he? Thrashed Kines with no provocation? It was the clerk’s fault for rising so abruptly, and yet the clerk was the one who swore alongside Kines that Boston hurled the automaton to the floor. It was Kines who made to punch him; Boston only served it back to him. That, too, Kines and his clerk denied. Boston will seek his retribution when he is set loose. It will be the type of reckoning he knows, but this with the Dora woman, it chafes him constantly.
    He settles at last in the straw. Sifts through her stories, her life, every word returning as clearly as the day it was spoken. A clue is within the stories as to what he should do; he is certain of it.
    â€œCome in, good lady. Come in,” her father says to a woman. Assures her they can negotiate any price. The drapery is on a twist of a street not far from Newcut Market. It is small, but ah, what pride the Timmonses all take in it. They have cambric, baize, and muslin, printed cottons, worsted damask, French marino, linen ticking and bleached duck. They have cerements and swaddling, shawls and fans. Her father was a costermonger of renown before he married and well he knows the art of the sale. He stuffs handbills in letter boxes, announcing a sale on “infinitesimally damaged goods.” Proclaims that new stock is fast arriving, as for the old, “for you, ma’am, I’ll make it such a price that you’ll be wondering how it is I feed my five children.” He