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must have half of it.’
    â€˜Why so?’
    â€˜Just because.’
    There were times when Fanny loved her friend so much it hurt.

Chapter Five
    The winter brought snow, then deep slushy mud, then more snow. At times the mud froze solid, hurting the feet of horse and man alike. Fur-lined boots became the most prized item in everyone’s wardrobe, with matching hats a close second. Fanny and Carola had muffs made from fox fur, and ordered a great stack of logs to be delivered to their back yard. Hugo shivered in his kennel until he was permitted to sleep indoors when the nights were at their most bitter.
    The gold rumours evolved and expanded into unarguable fact, confirmed by the President himself in the final weeks of 1848, but nobody saw another Jim with his pockets full and his clothes abnormally fine until early in January. Jim himself had moved on in search of a place to settle and live out his days. ‘He’ll be wanting a wife,’ said Carola. ‘And chances are, he’ll very soon find one.’
    After a hesitant start, over half the men in Oregon decided to take a chance and make a dash southwards to see for themselves what the reality of the matter might be. News of their progress was patchy, but before long there were fantastic reports of men who had taken home ten thousand dollars and more from a single week’s light digging. Carola became restless, convinced that they were missing shining opportunities to enrich themselves. Very few of the prospectors had returned to their homesteads in Oregon, and Carola expressed an opinion that they were more likely to start new lives in the California sunshine, where they might satisfy their feverish appetites with ease. ‘There will be a dire shortage of female company,’ she said.
    â€˜I don’t doubt it,’ Fanny agreed. ‘But … they will be drunken and rough. Men from Chile; Mexicans and foreigners. Can we not remain here, and wait for the wealth to come to us? Surely they won’t
all
stay in California?’
    â€˜We might leave it until the springtime,’ Carola conceded. ‘By then we will know more of how things stand.’
    As things stood, their business was flagging badly. Mr Canelli was sending barely one man a week, and only a handful of middle-aged regulars remained.
    Charlie still came to visit Fanny every Friday night, aiming to be the last of her customers, so as to stay and talk a while. Her pity for him changed to admiration over the weeks. His body was well-muscled, his face attractive in a lean kind of way. ‘And really, it would be foolish to permit such a deformity to make me bitter,’ he said. ‘Even when normal, it remains insignificant compared to arms and legs. A man must work and think before he lets his passions hold sway.’
    Fanny tilted her head and smiled. ‘If the world were in an ideal state, that would surely be true,’ she said.
    â€˜But it ain’t. I know that. If you’d known me at sixteen you’d have never let me into your bed. I was a mad dog then, raging at the injury done to me. I had an older brother, who I swear made mock of every day of my life. He called me a freak
.’
    â€˜Cruel,’ said Fanny. ‘Did you mother not prevent him?’
    â€˜My mother acted as if nothing was wrong. Her own guilt ate away at her sense of what was real, until she lived all her time in a dream.’
    Knowing the answer already, but hoping for further details, she asked, ‘It was her doing?’
    â€˜Who else? Not that she wielded the knife, but she had it done to me, since her parents were Israelites and it forms part of their religious practice.’
    â€˜And your brother? He had it too?’
    Charlie nodded. ‘No trouble at all. He’d get it out and show me, any chance he got. He has four children now.’ His eyes went pink and he looked away.
    Since first meeting Charlie, Fanny had taken closer note of the