“Next!” called the barber.

The other two miners looked to Charlie. He nodded and stepped inside the barber’s tent.

“It has been a while since your last trim,” the barber noted, wrapping an old tablecloth around Charlie’s neck and shoulders.

“Two years since it was done proper-like,” Charlie said, “back in Seattle. This ain’t the kind of place I’d have expected to find a barber.”

The barber shook his head. “I came up here for the same reason you did, but I quickly learned that the miner’s life is not for me. I intend to make my way back out to Skagway in the spring - but I have to earn my way in a manner better suited to me.” The barber hacked off long clumps of hair, working in silence. When he’d reduced the matted mass to perhaps two inches in length, he inquired, “So, is today a special occasion?”

“I will be dining at the Majestic this evening, then buying a dance with the lady who owns it,” Charlie said.

“Ah . . . you’ve encountered some paydirt?”

Charlie suppressed the urge to nod. “Two years of hard luck, and now I finally got some gold. Tonight I live like a real man.”

Twenty or so minutes later, Charlie’s grey-streaked hair was short and slicked back, his sideburns elegantly shaped, his face smooth and whisker-free. He reached into his pocket, found his poke, and produced a small nugget about the size of a pinhead. “Will this suffice?”

“Very much so.” The barber quickly took the payment. “Thank you very much and have a marvelous evening.”

“Thank you,” Charlie said.

The sun had dropped behind the hills, leaving Dawson in shadow that would soon become night. A brisk breeze blew down the valley. While his canvas overcoat protected his body, the wind lashed at Charlie’s freshly groomed head in a way he was unaccustomed to. Reluctant to muss his hair so soon, he grimaced and left his wool cap in the coat’s outer pocket.

It was a good half-mile from the barber’s tent to Front Street, where saloons, hotels, restaurants, and dance halls offered the district’s thousands of bachelors an opportunity to dine, drink, and bask in the presence of women. Not all the miners would be out tonight—many could not afford it, did not wish to, or were simply too exhausted or ill to consider it—but there would be enough that latecomers risked being left out in the cold. None too keen to be one of those unfortunates, he picked up his pace until his footsteps were a drumbeat of crunching snow.

The Majestic was among the most impressive structures in all the Yukon—a long, two-storey edifice with sides of pine planking and a roof of corrugated tin. Charlie paused on the front stoop, listening to the muffled sounds of revelry coming from within, and then entered the coat room. He hung his coat up on a peg, confirmed that his poke remained in his trousers pocket, and passed through a pair of genuine French glass doors into the dining room.

The room was almost full, with a few faces he recognized but could not put a name to. The decor consisted largely of stuffed animals and some amateur artwork depicting miners at work. The host directed him to a setting for two along the outer wall, adjacent to a stuffed moose.

A waiter soon came by and introduced himself. Charlie said, “Evening. What have you got for drink?”

“We have a full bar, sir.”

He could not help but grin. “Really?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh my. Bring me a scotch, then.”

He emptied his tumbler in the short time it took for the food to arrive, and ordered another drink as the waiter set the plate down before him. “If I may, sir, I could find a bottle of champagne that would complement your meal most satisfactorily.”

He shrugged. “Okay, bring it, too.”

The meal outlasted his second scotch and his first glass of champagne. He poured another glass, and swirled his bread around the plate, mopping up leftover tomato sauce and errant little bits of meat and vegetable.

“Best meal I had since I can remember,” he said, as the waiter collected his plate.

“Would you care for a coffee and cigar?”

“No, I think I’ll be over to the dance hall.”

“Oh,” the waiter said. “Dancing so soon after dinner may give you cramps and impair your enjoyment of the evening.”

“Really?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Huh. Then I guess I’ll take you up on that offer after all.”

The coffee and cigar came with a newspaper from Seattle—probably one from the summer, given the length of time it took anything to reach Dawson—and he breezed through it between sips of coffee and drags from the short, fat cigar. He couldn’t read the text, but the pictures were tantalizing glimpses at life back in the civilized world.

Still, what he really wanted was a dance. To be near Ms. O’Donnell—to feel her hand and the small of her back, to smell her perfume, to see her smile—that was what he wanted. By the time the cigar was a smouldering stub in the ashtray, he was more than ready to finish off his champagne, settle his bill, and move along.

The dance hall was on the other side of the coatroom. There was no pause for contemplation at the door; if anything, he had to restrain himself to avoid running.

It was bedlam inside. Every seat was occupied by men in their dressiest clothes, and dozens more lined the walls, nursing drinks, smoking, or both. A gentleman in top hat and suit pounded on a baby grand piano while four comely women in long, frilly dresses circulated around the room, dispensing alcohol. In the middle of it all, on the dance floor, six miners and six girls stepped, spun, and wove. The miners were wide-eyed and whooping; the girls smiled and laughed and did their finest to keep up.

Charlie picked out Ms. O’Donnell within moments.

As on previous occasions, he noticed her face first—pleasantly round, flushed with exertion, and surrounded by tawny curls that bounced to the rhythm of the music. She wore a dark blue gown that complemented her tall, sturdy frame and heaved under the influence of concealed bosoms within. She grinned and whooped along with her partner as her skill and grace overcame the man’s inebriation and clumsiness to produce something resembling an elegant waltz.

Charlie was smitten; had been since he’d spied her on his last visit. “Ms. O’Donnell. . . .” he said to the first serving girl to pass by.

“Martha?” she replied.

“Yeah. Martha. Is she busy?”

“Oh, yes—those gentlemen there are in line to dance with her,” the girl said, gesturing toward eight or nine men in a file that reached from the edge of the dance floor to the wall on Charlie’s left.

“Thank you.” He pushed through the crowd to the end of the line. “This, er, Martha’s line?” he inquired of the man before him.

“It is,” the other fellow confirmed. “Best you have a generous poke at hand, friend—Martha is expensive.”

Charlie patted his pocket. “I’m ready.”

The downside of his decision to dance with Martha was that he had to wait his turn. Each song was no more than three minutes long, but that meant nearly half an hour of watching her dance with other men.

In each case, the procedure was much the same; the pianist concluded the tune, Martha and the partner parted ways (sometimes with a kiss on the cheek), and she sashayed to her line of admirers. She made a point of checking and taking the offered payment before accepting the arm of the prospective dance partner. Only then did she, and the other five girls operating in the same fashion, return to the floor for the next dance.

He could sense a man behind him, but pointedly refused to look back and see how long the line had grown. He wanted to imagine he would be Martha’s final partner of the evening—which the sight of other men behind him would not facilitate.

As she concluded the pre-dance transaction with the man in front of Charlie, he caught the slightest hint of a floral perfume and heard her coo in delight as she took possession of the man’s fee. That last dance lasted an eternity, but he made the most of it by watching carefully for useful information. It appeared that she liked to be dipped, and didn’t mind being twirled, although he had doubts that, with his limited stature, he could correctly do that move. She was probably faster on her feet than he was, and was unquestionably a more skilled dancer in general. He’d hope for something slow and keep it simple.

The pianist wrapped up the song. Martha parted ways with her partner. Charlie took a deep breath and his fingers fumbled for his poke as she approached him.

“Evening, partner,” she greeted him.

“Uh, hello, Ms. O’Donnell,” he stammered. “I’m just a little lonesome and hoping to dance.”

“You’re in the right place, Lonesome. Call me Martha. Oh, is that for me?” she asked, eyes on his poke.

“Well, yes, of course,” he replied quickly, and held it out for her to examine.

She looked at the last grains of gold dust in the little leather bag and blinked. Her laughter left him physically stunned and drew the eyes of many in the dance hall. “Oh, Lonesome,” she said, lightly tapping his arm, “Seriously, now.”

“But . . . that’s what I got,” he mumbled.

“Well, that’s not nearly enough,” she muttered in return. “Who’s next?” she called, brushing past him.

He threw the poke to the floor and stormed out of the dance hall, plowing his way through snickering patrons and employees alike. It didn’t occur to him to stop for his coat. He just shoved the main doors open and began running down the street, the heat of his growing rage and the alcohol in his blood drowning out the bitter chill of the night.

He didn’t hear people telling him he’d catch pneumonia. He didn’t smell the aromatic wood-smoke drifting out of five thousand wood stoves. He didn’t see the northern lights, rippling slowly overhead. Without consciously thinking about it, he passed through the tent city and kept going, heading for his claim on Red Fox Creek.

She wanted more gold? Oh, he’d get her more gold, all right.

A light dusting of snow covered the trail up the creek. The only sounds he heard were his own crunching footsteps and his increasingly rapid breathing. Nobody would be out here working at this time of night; at this point in the season, most weren’t even working during the day.

Upon reaching his claim, it occurred to him that all his equipment—shovel, pick, candles—was back at his tent in the city. No matter. He’d work in the dim light of the waxing moon and the northern lights. He’d kick loose a rock at the bottom of the shaft and use it as a hammer to dislodge other material. He knew what paydirt looked like, so he’d just pile up the frozen chunks of it in one corner and stack the waste in another. It would all work out.

At one side of the hole, he found the top-most rung of the ladder and climbed downward. The smooth-worn wood was cold and slick with frost, but experience won out and he was soon at the bottom of the twenty-three foot shaft.

The light wasn’t as bright as he’d hoped, but he found a loose rock soon enough, a rounded grey cobble with an odd, waxy luster. He reached down and felt a strange sucking sensation as his hand grasped the rock and froze to it. He snorted. “Ain’t gonna lose it now.”

He pounded the rock into a wall of the shaft, over and over, releasing his anger. Bits of ice and gravel pelted him. Pebbles, cobbles, and frozen agglomerations fell, but it was all gangue, with no trace of the dark, heavy minerals that accompanied gold.

Eventually his swing was off and the tips of his fingers were smashed between the rocks. The sudden pain gave him pause. His exposed skin, other than that on the bleeding digits, felt numb. He was tired. The air quality was getting poor. And, since he had a damned rock stuck to his hand, climbing back out again was going to be well-nigh impossible.

He tried anyway. He got halfway up before his hand slipped and he fell down. His back scraped along the rough wall of the shaft, his head banged against a protruding boulder, and his collarbone took the brunt of the final impact on the irregular floor.

He lay on the cold rubble, pain throbbing through his body, and realized he was in trouble. This would be it. He would freeze to death, perhaps not to be found for days.

At least the northern lights were lovely this night. He watched the ribbons of pink-shot green swirling in the square of sky above the shaft as his arms and legs fell numb. He mumbled a short, slurred prayer, and waited for consciousness to end.

The last thing he noticed before blacking out was a dark rivulet oozing out of the rock, around his ring finger, and into the bloody knuckle.

When Charlie stirred again, somebody close by yelped, and so he yelped, too.

He cracked his eyes open to see the owner of a nearby claim, Samuel Harris, standing near the entrance to the shaft, barely recognizable under his thick coat and pants. “Jumping Jehosephat, Charlie! We thought you was dead!” Harris exclaimed.

Charlie was lying on his back in the snow, several feet away. He was apparently not dead, and there was no rock stuck to his hand. “What the blazes am I doing here?”

“We’re wondering the same thing,” Harris replied. “Rory spotted you on his way up to his claim. You were all cold, bloody, and stinking of liquor. Didn’t see your breath or nothing.” After a moment, he added, “Still don’t, actually.”

Charlie glanced down to confirm the observation. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, so asked, “You found me here?”

“Rory did, yeah. What in tarnation were you doing, anyway? It’s a miracle you ain’t froze solid by now.”

“Just a little keen, I suppose.”

“Heh,” Harris chuckled. “I heard you made a right fool of yourself last night at the Majestic.”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Charlie growled.

“Tried to dance on the cheap with—”

Charlie was on his feet in a heartbeat. He shoved Harris hard with both hands, figuring to knock him back a step and shut him up. The blows struck with loud, meaty thumps. Harris was flung a good twenty feet past the entrance to the shaft and tumbled end-for-end in the snow.

Charlie gaped.

Harris did not get up.

“Sam?”

Harris did not respond.

Uneasy, he trudged through the snow to Harris. “Sa—” his voice trailed off as he noticed the expression on Harris’s face and the odd angle at which his head lay relative to his body.

He knelt down to look into Harris’s lifeless eyes. “Oh Lord,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

But it had happened. He’d killed a man. That was a hanging offense, and there was no practical way to escape the noose, save for running into the hills—not a feasible proposition given the frigid temperatures and his near-complete lack of clothing and equipment.

He stared at Harris, trying to think. He could blame somebody else. Make up a story—Harris had been dead when he woke up, slain by an unseen assailant.

Only, there were no tracks within fifty feet of Harris save for his own. He’d need to create a fake set somehow, lead it back to the main trail where it might get lost . . . then carefully return to this precise spot by stepping in his own tracks from minutes earlier. That could be done.

He’d taken four steps toward the trail when he spotted Rory Sampson and two Mounties—a constable and a sergeant—coming up from town. “Charlie?” Rory exclaimed as he caught sight of him. “You’re alive?”

Hot panic surged through his veins, but Charlie couldn’t make himself speak.

“I thought you said your friend’s name was Samuel,” said the sergeant, a grizzled veteran with a short beard.

“Yeah, Samuel’s my buddy, but that there’s Charlie, what we thought was dead.”

“Clearly he isn’t,” the sergeant replied.

“I suppose he ain’t,” Rory agreed. “Jeepers, Charlie, you sure fooled us. Where’s Sam?”

If Charlie could have made himself speak, he might’ve said “I don’t know” or “Gone back to town” or something that would’ve caused Rory and the Mounties to stop before they caught sight of Harris’s body. But he couldn’t make sound come out of his mouth, and so the three drew closer.

“That your friend there?” the constable asked, pointing toward Harris’s corpse.

“Yeah,” Rory said. “But he don’t look right. . . .”

“He looks dead,” the sergeant observed. “You sure you didn’t get these two mixed up, Rory?”

“No!” Rory protested. “Sam and I found him looking dead. Sam was just fine when I left to get you fellas!”

The sergeant stopped a few feet short of Harris and blocked Rory’s progress with an outstretched arm. “Yeah, this one’s dead. Broken neck.” He turned to look at his colleague and Charlie.

“Accident,” Charlie managed to blurt out at last. “Accident.”

“At the very least, it’s clear you’ve moved the body.” The sergeant examined the tracks in the snow. “And this looks like evidence of a struggle,” he added, pointing at the stretch through which Harris had tumbled.

“I believe we’ll have to take you into custody, sir,” said the constable, reaching into a pocket of his overcoat.

Charlie bolted.

The young Mountie was right behind him and caught up within seconds. He shoved Charlie in the back, sending him sprawling face first into the snow. Charlie rolled onto his side as the constable skidded to a stop and lunged at him, handcuffs dangling from one hand. Charlie lashed out with his left leg and caught the constable just below his right knee. Something cracked. The Mountie shrieked as his leg bent backward and gave out.

Charlie scrambled to his feet, sidestepping the fallen man, sparing not a moment to glance behind. There would be no turning back now. He was running for the hills and the meagre chance of freedom and survival that they offered.

Something cracked past his left ear. Something punched his back. He kept running.

An October day was still nine hours long at sixty-four degrees latitude, so running all day was no small feat.

Charlie’s flight initially sent him east, away from town, but the occasional person collecting firewood or hunting had probably caught sight of him. When the Mounties crossed paths with them, they’d remember seeing the man with no coat.

So he turned north, following a valley parallel to the Yukon River. After encountering four men using the valley as a trail, he cut upslope and started following the ridgelines. There wasn’t much concealment to be had, given how thoroughly it had all been logged out for timber and firewood. It was slower and more difficult travelling, but none of the men down in the valleys seemed to notice him above them.

The sun was plummeting out of the southern sky when he finally sat down on the exposed trunk of a fallen birch to rest. His endurance was astonishing; he’d been on the move at a strong clip for hours, and while he was famished he was only barely winded.

Something wasn’t right. Just looking at his hand told him this. He recalled having a leaky grey rock stuck to him, but it was gone now and hadn’t taken any skin off with it. His flesh was warm, flexible, and pink despite having been continuously exposed to freezing temperatures for a good twelve or fifteen hours. His wounded fingers were completely healed. Factor in the strength with which he’d shoved poor old Harris . . . he had to conclude he was no normal man today.

“Like a grizzly in men’s clothes. . . .” he mused aloud.

If he really was as strong and hale as a bear, and it was a lasting condition, then he had more options than just a quick death in the bush. At the very least, he could sneak back into Dawson, steal some grub and gear, and get out again. If he could avoid becoming predictable, he might last a while doing that.

Alternately, he could make a few raids in quick succession, build up a cache, grab a dog team, and strike out for Whitehorse and then Skagway. He’d be safe on American soil; he’d just need to wait for a steamship and get passage south. Of course, Skagway was four or five hundred miles away. When he’d done the trek coming in, it had taken months, and he’d been reasonably well supplied.

Perhaps a raid was a good starting point.

He backtracked south along the riverbank, scarcely concealed by the thin scrub and stumps. Around an hour after nightfall, he caught direct sight of Dawson again, a wide expanse of yellow candlelight and orange firelight that illuminated the snow around it. Overhead, the aurora had flared into existence and was rippling in waves of green, yellow, and white, as if pouring out of the Big Dipper. Their soft tinkle reminded him of candle ice breaking up in the spring, and he wondered why he’d never noticed the sound before.

His lower back twinged, and he reached to massage it. A fingernail snagged on a rip or hole in his shirt in the same spot as his backache. He picked at the rip for a moment; it hadn’t been there earlier.

A strange thought crossed his mind. He unbuttoned the shirt and shrugged out of it. He was surprised to see a round hole, as wide as his pinky finger, in the lower back of the shirt. A smatter of frozen blood encircled it.

“That son of a bitch shot me,” he muttered, remembering his flight from the Mounties. When he reached around and felt his back, it was certainly sore—but there was no open wound that he could determine, no wet or frozen blood, no scabs. At worst, he figured there might be a bruise.

So he was unnaturally strong, fast, weather-resistant, and bullet-proof? If so, why on God’s green Earth was he thinking about running off to Skagway? Just a short distance away were both the source of his current humiliation and the richest gold placer on the continent.

The barber’s turn of phrase came to mind. “I will try to earn a bit of gold in a manner better suited to me,” he muttered.

Like on most Saturdays, the entertainment district was packed as miners sought to have fun and blow off steam before the Sabbath and its Mountie-enforced closures came into effect. For the most part, the people around him were chattering, laughing, and drinking. A few hapless souls, having over-indulged, were doubled over and vomiting into the snow, and one appeared to have passed out in a drift. Occasionally, he heard the sounds of fights, muggings, or sex taking place behind buildings.

Charlie drew curious glances as he approached the Majestic, probably due more to his lack of outerwear than because anyone recognized him as a wanted man. As he’d half expected, his coat was still hanging on the same peg in the establishment’s coatroom. He left it; if he hadn’t needed it for the past day, he wasn’t going to need it later.

The dance hall was packed with miners standing shoulder to shoulder, several rows deep. From the entrance, Charlie couldn’t see through or over them to the dance floor, but he had no doubt Martha was at the centre of it all.

He began forcing his way around the perimeter of the room. He earned no small number of hard looks from the patrons he shoved aside, but not one could hold his ground against him. He reached the piano without difficulty and leaned to speak into the pianist’s ear. “Please stop a moment so I can talk to the crowd.”

The pianist shook his head. His fingers continued to dance across the keys.

“I’m asking nice,” Charlie said.

The pianist glanced up at him. “Sod off.”

Charlie reached out, took hold of the back of his neck, and tossed him onto the dance floor.

The abrupt silence momentarily shocked the partygoers, but they quickly locked eyes on Charlie and began bombarding him with jeers and insults. As the pianist picked himself up off the planked floor, Charlie said, “I just want to say something.”

The verbal abuse continued unabated.

He stamped his left foot, making less noise than he’d hoped, yet breaking through the floorboard. He swung his arms to maintain his balance, drawing laughter in addition to insults. He looked down as he yanked his foot free of the broken wood. As he looked up again, the pianist punched him square on the nose. The cheering of the crowd drowned out the impact, but there was no mistaking the expression of pain on the pianist’s face; it wasn’t Charlie’s nose that had broken.

Charlie lifted the man by the waist and held him aloft despite his struggles and ineffectual blows. The crowd began to quiet. After a half minute, the pianist stopped fussing. The hall was finally silent.

“Thank you,” Charlie said.

“Say your piece and get out, Lonesome!” Martha called. She wore a billowy, white lace gown and shoved aside a couple to confront him, hands on her hips.

“My name is Charlie, Martha.”

She shrugged. “Lonesome. Charlie. Don’t matter none. Set Rich down and clear out afore the Mounties arrive.”

Charlie nodded, and set the pianist down. “You, sir, are a fool—you done broke your hand and now you can’t earn your keep.”

The pianist glared at him but kept his mouth closed.

“Okay,” Charlie said. “Martha remembers me from last night, and some of the rest of you might, too. I been up here two long years, I came here last night to have a short dance with a pretty girl, and then I got laughed at when I offered her more gold than any girl would earn in a year down south. That was pretty darned humiliating, and I ran outta here with my tail between my legs.” He paused to lock eyes with Martha.

She stared back until he broke eye contact again.

“But I’m all different now,” he continued. “I’m strong enough to kill with my bare hands, tough enough to shrug off a Mountie’s bullets, and hale enough that I can run round all day without a coat or gloves. I’ve decided I’m going to take ad—”

A two-by-four splintered across the top of his head.

The crowd’s roar of approval faded quickly as he slowly turned to face his assailant. It was a taller, younger fellow he didn’t recognize, dressed in clean shirt and trousers. The jagged end of the board hung from his left hand.

Charlie grasped the man’s wrist, and crushed it with an audible crackle. Raising his voice over the man’s cries of pain, he said, “Now, look—I ain’t keen to keep beating on people, but I promise you this: I will tear the head clean off the shoulders of the next man what interrupts me. That clear?”

Nobody contested the matter.

“Thank you,” he said. “Now, as I was saying, I have decided to take advantage of my newfound . . . er, advantages, so I can get the gold I came here for. It ain’t how I wanted to do it, but it seems I’m not much better at mining than the fellow what cut my hair yesterday. And since I ain’t one for numbers or books, I’ll make it real simple for everybody. Tomorrow, I want a pile of gold in front of my tent. And every day after that, I want it to get bigger. Who provides it and who brings it ain’t my concern. If I’m happy with what I get, everything is swell. If I’m not, I will start breaking things, beginning with this particular establishment.”

“That’s preposterous,” Martha said.

“Maybe, but you know what? Some fine day, when I know that there’s no way any man will ever have a larger poke than mine, I will bring that pile of gold up this way, and I will buy a dance with one of your competitors.”

She glared at him, and it drew a bit of a smirk to his face.

“Now, then—does anybody need any further demonstration of my seriousness, or can I retire to my tent for the evening?”

Nobody spoke.

“That’s good. I will look forward to my earnings tomorrow.” The crowd parted for him as he made his way out of the dance hall, ready to return to his tent and get some sleep.

He didn’t get as much shut-eye as he’d hoped. Without even a hint of dawn out east, he woke to a vaguely familiar voice shouting his name.

“This is Sergeant Hawke of the North-West Mounted Police! You are under arrest for murder, assault, public disorder, and resisting arrest! You come on out of that tent with your hands raised high!”

He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Silhouettes of armed men, backlit by the moon, played on the canvas around him.

“Charles Albert Johnstone! This is—”

“I heard you!” Charlie shouted. “Lord. . . .”

“You going to come out peaceful, Charlie?”

“Yeah, I’m coming!” Charlie tossed the wool blankets aside and slid off his cot. He stretched in the middle of the tent with his head just grazing the canvas, then opened the plank door set into the middle of the front end.

A number of Mounties stood in an arc aiming guns at him, including the sergeant from the day before. “Put your hands behind your head and stay where you are.”

“No, I ain’t surrendering,” Charlie said. “Killing Samuel was an accident. So was injuring your man. I concede I resisted arrest, but I ain’t prepared to stand trial for that.”

“We have instructions to shoot you if you resist arrest.”

Charlie nodded. “Go on then. Shoot me and be done with it. You ain’t going to kill me, Sergeant. You already tried and failed at that. Here, look where you done shot me in the back.” He turned around and lifted the back of his undershirt. “See a bruise or anything there? That’s all there is.”

“No doubt you got lucky, Charlie. Could be the cartridge didn’t have a full powder charge.”

“So shoot me again,” Charlie said, turning to face the Mounties. “If you kill me, then you’ve saved me a date with a hangman. If you don’t kill me, then you’ve proven I’m bulletproof. Just ask yourself if that’s something better left unproven.”

The constables on either side of Hawke holstered their revolvers and began to approach him. Charlie sighed.

When they were within reach, he carefully shoved the one aside, sending him sprawling into the snow. He took hold of the other man’s forearm, trying not to crack the bones. He unbuckled the officer’s holster and pulled out the heavy revolver.

He pushed the second constable down. Bullets and buckshot punched through his clothes, stung his face, chest, legs, and arms, drawing specks of blood in places. Nonetheless, he remained substantially unharmed when the Mounties ceased to fire.

“Jesus,” one of the Mounties muttered.

“Well, I told you,” Charlie snapped. “Here, let me make it crystal clear.” He thumbed back the hammer on the stolen revolver, placed the barrel under his chin, and pulled the trigger. His jaw rocked upward with the report; the bullet ricocheted down into the snow. “Look, stand out there and keep watch if you want to. I’m going back to catch some more winks. You try getting me, and I’ll bust you all up.”

He didn’t wait for a response; he just turned and ducked back inside.

Come Sunday morning—in the proper sense of the word, with hints of daylight and everything—he rose again. It felt like he’d been in a fistfight; every place he’d been shot was tender, and a couple had given way to dark bruises. Moving gingerly, he stepped out of the tent and blinked.

There was a crowd watching him—perhaps fifty miners and a cluster of four Mounties. “Er . . . morning,” he said.

None of the bystanders answered, though one Mountie nodded.

He padded around behind his tent, unbuttoned the flap on his trousers, and relieved himself, finding the process more challenging than usual, given the audience. “I guess you fellas are here to watch me,” he said to the Mounties when he was done, “but what about you others?”

“Heard you killed a man up on Red Fox yesterday,” one of the gathered miners remarked.

“It was an accident,” Charlie said. “You wanting to dish out some justice?”

“Just curious,” the man replied. “Heard you want people to give you gold, too.”

“Like Martha O’Donnell,” his neighbour piped up.

“Yeah,” Charlie said.

“Think that’ll happen?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said, “or I’ll have to go back and make some new arguments.”

The miner chuckled. “Think I’ll tag along. Martha ain’t the kinda woman what takes crap from anybody.”

“Heard she’s hiring men for security,” another stampeder interjected.

“And you didn’t sign up?” Charlie asked.

“I heard the Mounties shooting at you earlier, yet here you are. So I reckon I’m content to just watch.”

“That sounds mighty sensible of you,” Charlie agreed. “You gonna contribute to my poke?”

The miner shrugged. “Ain’t got nothing to give.”

“‘Course not,” Charlie said. “What about the rest of you all?”

The miners shuffled or looked away.

“Well, don’t that just figure.”

He spent the morning on an empty wood crate beside the door to his tent. He nursed a cup of coffee and gulped down a pair of biscuits with bacon fat smeared across their tops. He made small talk with his audience. He tossed a few crumbs at a brazen raven that swooped down to land in the snow beside him.

As noon approached, the miners began trickling away, muttering and snickering as they headed back to their own camps. He couldn’t make out what they said, but their collective refusal to give him so much as a grain of gold dust told him enough. They thought he was a joke.

He made himself a lunch of beans and bacon and another coffee. A bean slid off his spoon, and the raven darted in to snatch it from the snow. As the bird retreated, Charlie grinned. “Yeah, you get it. You want something, sometimes you got to take it. And it ain’t like you took it all.” He threw a few more beans to the bird as he ate.

Another quartet of Mounties arrived, and the two groups had a brief, muted discussion. The first set left without leaving any gold for him, and the newcomers didn’t have look to have any heavy sacks on them. “Strange that you fellas are still here when all the other guys are gone home,” he called out to the Mounties. “Unless it weren’t them you was watching, of course.”

He kept an eye on them as he repaired the bullet hole in his shirt with thread and needle. He washed his dishes and filled his pot with cleanish snow. He aired out his bedding and snow-washed his other set of clothes. He whittled a piece of birch and watched the sun begin to set.

The Sabbath was coming to an end. The town’s entrepreneurs—their businesses closed by law—would have had no trouble coming up to his camp to give him the gold he’d asked for. They’d chosen not to.

“Goddammit it all anyway,” he muttered, setting the wood and knife down on the edge of the crate. “Follow me, boys, ‘cause I’m going back to town to make some new arguments.”

The Mounties followed at a safe distance. Stampeders fell in behind them as they passed row after row of tents and shacks. A cry went up—“Lonesome’s going to collect!”—and the retinue swelled. He could hear their chatter and sense their anticipation; they were looking forward to him getting his arse whooped. Well, he aimed to disappoint them.

As he reached the south end of Front Street, one of the Mounties split off toward their headquarters. Some of the Dawsonites ran out ahead of him, perhaps looking to secure good vantage points near the Majestic. Others poked their heads out of windows and doors or filtered out to join the parade.

Charlie stopped upon seeing two lines of men standing between him and the Majestic. The nearer line consisted of Mounties, hands clasped behind their backs. The second line was of ordinary Dawsonites holding boards or tools. A throng of hundreds or thousands stood on the periphery of it all, pushing and shoving for position.

Sergeant Hawke stepped forward from the front line. “Charlie Johnstone. Lonesome Charlie, they’re starting to call you. This town doesn’t need your trouble. If you won’t surrender yourself, then turn around and walk back to your camp.”

“Lonesome?” Charlie called back. “That really catching on?”

“It is. You don’t care for it?”

“Sounds kind of pathetic, don’t it?”

“No more so than Soapy or such,” Hawke replied. “You’d hardly be the first criminal to acquire an unflattering nickname.”

“I ain’t a criminal!” Charlie shouted.

“Of course you’re a criminal. On top of what you did yesterday, you’re now extorting gold out of hardworking folk. What else would I call you?”

“Hardworking?” Charlie exclaimed. “Martha and her ilk steal every day and night they’re open. Look what they charge for a meal, or cigar, or dance. They’re fleecing fellas like me what do the hard work, and the law lets them get away with it. Anybody deserves to lose some gold, it’s them. Ain’t that right?” he called to the crowd.

Scattered cheers of encouragement echoed back.

Hawke ignored them. “Not one person is under any requirement to pay for an overpriced cigar or an old newspaper, Charlie. Fellas do it because they’ve got the gold and there’s nothing else to do but spend it. Their choice.”

“Well, I just want to get some gold, spend it on a dance, and get out of this shithole.”

“If this is how you intend to do it, you’ll have to go through us first,” Hawke stated.

“Not gonna shoot me again?”

“Not yet. We’ll take you down through weight of numbers.”

Charlie counted the Mounties and the volunteers beyond them—fifty or more, easily. “We’ll see about that,” he called out, and sprang forward.

The crowd erupted as the Mounties and the volunteers surged toward him. He shoved the first Mountie to cross his path, sending the man hurtling away. A flailing fist knocked another to the ground. A third grimaced as his baton rebounded from Charlie’s left forearm.

Blows rained down on him from behind, but he was through the Mounties. The first Dawsonite to come at him went down with broken ribs. He backhanded the next one, breaking his shoulder. Another would-be attacker stumbled back as Charlie locked eyes with him.

He twisted as somebody jumped on his back; a Mountie flew past him and took down two Dawsonites. Hands grasped at his clothes, his arms, his waist, and his legs. He realized that Hawke had been speaking literally; they were indeed trying to pile on to him, drag him down, and bury him under their collective weight. He started throwing wild punches. Those that landed did terrible damage, but his lack of fighting experience meant many didn’t land at all.

His forward motion was coming to a halt. Three or four ranks of Dawsonites shoved and pushed at him, while Mounties leapt at his feet and his back, wrapped their arms around his shoulders and pulled at his ears.

His determination began to waver. They were going to stop him. They were going to beat him. He was going to be a laughing stock again.

Charlie bellowed his frustration, and the faces before him flinched at the intensity of the sound. Sensing less force against his body, he shouted again, shifted his weight to the right, then shoved left, taking down a couple of men. His left arm came free again. He swung in a wide arc, striking down two Mounties. He butted his head backward and struck flesh; the hands on his ears fell away. He squeezed his arms against his sides, and the arms around his shoulders cracked and disappeared. He spun, and more men fell or backed away.

The way to the Majestic’s front entrance was no longer blocked. He kicked off two diehard Mounties and lunged forward, reaching the door in four long strides.

He flung the front door open. It crashed into the wall and rebounded, slamming into his side as he entered. He lashed out, and its hinges broke.

Flustered, he wrenched the handle off the door to the dining room with a crack of breaking brass. The door swung slowly open to admit him.

Martha O’Donnell stood in the empty room, arms crossed under her breasts.

“I told everybody yesterday that I wanted some gold,” Charlie growled. “Ain’t nobody brought it. So I’m here to take it.”

“I sacrificed everything to get where I am,” Martha growled back. “I left my husband and my babes behind in Boston. I travelled by steamer all the way around the Americas to get to Skagway. I climbed the Chilkoot Pass thirty-seven goddamned times to get my supplies over the top and nearly drowned in Miles Canyon. I risked every last cent I had to buy this place. Why would I give up my gold to you, Lonesome, just because you said so?”

“Because you were cruel to me, and if you don’t make it right, I’m gonna rip this place apart,” Charlie replied.

“I’ll rebuild,” Martha declared.

He stepped forward, grasped the edge of the nearest table and picked it up. Silverware crashed to the floor around his feet. Martha didn’t waver, so he flung the table into the wall. Boards broke. The table crashed to the floor in fragments.

He kicked at an empty chair; it disintegrated as it struck the ceiling. “Are you really gonna make me do this?”

“You didn’t take down all of the Mounties. More will be here shortly, and I expect they’ll be bringing their Maxim guns this time,” she said.

“You oughta see by now they can’t stop me, guns or no.” Charlie picked up another chair, pulled the legs off, and threw the pieces aside. He put his fist through a second table, spilling drink and food. He kicked away the chairs around it. Looking up, he saw Martha hadn’t so much as shifted. He said, “I guess you can replace those.”

“Carpenters will be lining up for the business as soon as your arse is out the door.”

He glanced over to the side and smirked. “What about the piano?”

Her face fell, but she said nothing. The piano died in a horrible cacophony of breaking wood and screeching wire.

He started on the brass fittings of the bar, snapping them into pieces. Bottles of wine, champagne, and hard liquor flew in all directions. He looked up into a long mirror mounted on the wall above the empty wine racks and grinned at Martha’s reflection.

“Enough!” she cried out. Tears were beginning to streak her rouged cheeks.

“Finally.” He sighed. “I thought it would be the piano, honestly. Well, go get it, then.”

“No, you get it yourself,” she growled, pointing to the kitchen door. “The office is through there. I’m sure you can break into the safe easily enough.”

“I expect so,” he agreed. He stepped into the vacant kitchen and quickly spied a closed door off to the left. He tore the door off its hinges. Inside, he saw an iron safe behind a large desk.

It took him a few seconds to wrench the safe door open, but it yielded. He did not spare so much as a glance at the paper and cash stacked within. Only a large burlap sack caught his eye; he snatched it and grinned as he felt its weight: a good five or six pounds of gold in there, easily.

He knotted the top of the sack around his belt and whooped as his trousers sank on his right hip. He strode back through the kitchen, savouring the rhythmic bumping of the gold against his leg. He pushed open the door to the dining room, saying, “Thank you very much, my—” and had just enough time to comprehend that an object was flying at him before the lamp shattered against his chest.

Flaming kerosene engulfed him.

He screamed, lurched forward, and crashed through the wreckage of the dining room. Dripping oil ignited sawdust, splinters, and spilt spirits. The front wall of the Majestic burst outward as he smashed through it.

Staccato thunder erupted. He reeled and howled. His hair burned, his flesh bubbled. He dashed forward, unable to see or think beyond the need to reach the river.

His flight left slushy footsteps in his wake, and then he was tumbling into the blessed, black cold of the Yukon.

In his earliest lucid moments, face down on the river’s edge, miles downstream from Dawson, Lonesome prayed for death. God did not see fit to take him, and Lucifer did not come to claim him.

He endured hours, days, and weeks, kept awake by the pain yet too weak to move except for desperate grabs at any organic matter within reach. Moss, leaves, sticks, fish, rodents—he could not shake a compulsive, almost animalistic urge to devour everything, however repulsive. What remained of his hair receded, and his fingernails seemed to absorb into his skin. The tattered remnants of his trousers and boots gradually dissolved, until he was naked in the freezing water.

Once the agony had receded to mere, ongoing pain, he could think clearly about what had happened; indeed, it was the only way he had to pass the time. He knew Martha had set him on fire and that the Mounties had—just as she’d predicted—fired on him with their Maxim guns.

In fits of nightmare-filled sleep, his mind played out fantasies of inflicting unspeakable horrors upon them all.

Eventually he woke from one such fit and felt not only hunger, but the energy to seek out sustenance. He shook free from the ice and snow binding him and crawled onto the frozen bank. Under a drab winter sky he observed that—though dangerously thin, and without hair—he was fully healed under a veneer of peeling scabs.

He stood and stretched, oblivious to the arctic wind flaying his bony, hairless body.

There would be no more politeness or half-hearted attempts at intimidation. There would be no turning back or slinking away after what had been inflicted upon him. While they forgot about him and prepared for Christmas, he’d be testing his strengths and his limits, and eating as much as he could. When he was ready, he’d start modestly—hitting the corporate mining operations, taking their gold. He’d learn to fight properly by ambushing the Mounties sent to apprehend him. He’d make sure Dawson—including the Mounties, and especially Martha—knew not only what he was doing but also that they were trapped, without prospect of escape or relief, for the rest of the winter.

He cleared his throat and rasped, “I will earn gold in a manner better suited to me.”

__________

Jason Sharp was born in Toronto, raised near Edmonton, and worked for several years as a geologist in Nunavut and the NWT. Currently a policy wonk by day, hobby farmer by night, and aspiring writer in between, he and his wife Valerie reside outside Ottawa.