Annie Proulx - Barkskins

“The money box, sir,” said Joseph Dogg. “I will take it in hand before we leave this place. I trust you have not availed yourself of any of the funds?” A cloud passed over the sun, briefly dimming the flood of light through the open door.

“How dare you, sir, imply that I am a thief?” Mr. Rainburrow swelled up. The word sir hissed through his teeth.

“Why, Mr. Rainbillow, I see that you are a clergyman of sorts, and it has been my experience that pastors, ministers, clergymen and church officials of all kinds feel entitled to use any stray funds that come their way to further their influence and control of local affairs — as well as building new churches, adding wings to existing churches, gilding the altar and such so-called good works, especially improving the parsonage or the wine cellar.”

“I will have you know that I have not touched a ha’pence,” lied the missionary, who had, in fact, used more than a hundred pounds of Mr. Bone’s money to build the storeroom where he cached his bales of flax.

“It will be a simple matter to judge,” said Joe Dogg, “as I know to the last penny what Mr. Bone had in that box. I have his monthly accounts up until three years ago, when correspondence ceased. He was meticulous in noting his expenditures. Before we depart I will conduct my examination of the contents of the money box and any papers he may have left. Also, you will present that proof of his demise.”

They left the missionary biting at his thumbnail. Sunlight washed the room as before.

• • •

Orion Palmer leaned on his counter near the open door, his narrow temples surmounted by a wave of cresting auburn hair, his hard blue eyes wide open. Etienne stared at his odd face, for below the earlobes the jaws swelled out, fleshy and full, carried down to a thick neck. “My son? Which one? I have more than a dozen, all fine fellows, but I certainly do not know the whereabouts of each. Most with their mother’s people.” The trader, in an easy mood and pleased with the fine day and the flock of sheep-like clouds marching overhead, sized up the two men.

“Your son Arana Palmer, sir,” said Etienne in the weighty voice he used with assertive whitemen. “We have heard that he knew my nephew Jinot Sel.”

“Ayuh, he did.” The trader sighed and thought for a long moment. “Pret’ sure Arana is workin the kauri yet.” He picked his teeth with a long fingernail. “Yep, he did know Jinot, we all known him. He frighted the women wicked when he first come here. So some took a dislike to him. He died of a poisoned wound — nothin we could do. Too late for amputation and no white man doctor here — just me, and I don’t go in for cuttin men’s limbs off.” As he warmed up he became more voluble, his limber mouth stretched in the smirk of a self-regarding man. “I say he was not young or strong enough in the first place to work cuttin kauri, but the missionary put him to it so’s he could earn his passage back home. He tried. Choppin kauri calls for strong young men,” he said. “He was not so young, pret’ lame though he knew well how to handle the ax. You could see that. He said he was a Penobscot man, and maybe he was a long time ago. Them days is gone, y’see — we got circle saws and trained bullocks. Now bullocks—”

He was ready to tell them his brilliant innovation of importing bullocks to New Zealand, for the trader had to get some indication of his importance into every conversation, but something in their intent leaning postures, their serious eyes following his lips as he spoke deterred him. He told them instead to take the steamer two harbors north and, following the map he sketched out on a broken packing-case slat, to walk the track to the Big Yam camp, where the choppers and sawyers were laying the kauri down. He wished them luck. “And I guess you want to finish your business here pretty quick as the Vigor is leaving for Port Jackson next week. We don’t get that many ships these days since the whales is all gone. Catch the Vigor and return to your own place.”

Etienne spoke. “We only just come here. Long long trip. We see something of this new land, not leave so soon. Country pretty different to K’taqmkuk.” He stared out at the bulging forest line beyond the cutover slope hardly believing the size of the stumps.

“Arana can show you — his mother is Maori. The Maori got a good many tapu places you best not disturb.” And the trader drew the edge of his hand across his throat.

• • •

The calm morning had changed; intermittent clouds now cast their stuttering shadows over the landscape. Arana, when they found him at work, was, like many Maori, handsome and strongly built with great leg muscles. There was little of the trader Orion Palmer in his appearance beyond a slightly oversize jaw. His hair hung long and snaggled. He listened to them, then said, “Come with me,” and led them through the stumps to an awkward place — a huge kauri stump surrounded by slash and the great pale arms of its severed limbs. He jumped on the flat top, the size of a barn floor, and beckoned to them to join him. “This is the very stump of the kauri Jinot was cuttin when his bad leg give way. There’s the cuts he made,” he said and pointed to the ax marks on the outer rings. Etienne touched the greying wood, old ax marks all that remained here to show that Jinot had walked the earth.

He diverted the conversation to the peculiarities of these curious tree giants that tempted woodsmen with their perfectly knotless bodies, for he, too, had chopped trees in Maine and Nova Scotia and had never seen anything like them. Arana said they were a kind of pine.

“Many men say,” said Arana, “that kauri is the best wood in the world.” They smoked their pipes in silence for some time. Etienne said, “What can you tell us of Jinot here?”

“He wanted to return to you but could not. He had no money. What else could he do? Become a trader? My father would not allow that. A cook? Perhaps. But he knew the ax, he knew how to bring a tree down even if it were the biggest tree of the world. He was very skilled with axes. He made a chair one Sunday, all with his ax. I think he was lonely here, nobody talk with but me and some of the choppers. He said he never meant to come here but that man, Mr. Bone, made him do it. He did not want to cut kauri — he said they were trees of power, and we also believe this. I do not think he ever told me of his uncle.” He squinted at Etienne as if he had just jumped down from the sky.

“He could not, for he did not know me, ha? His grandfather — my father — Kuntaw, left Penobscot a long time ago and returned to his Mi’kmaw people near Sipekne’katik river. Kuntaw got two wives after that whiteman woman, and one of them, my mother. Settlers pressed on us, the Scotlands, destroyed our eel weirs, burned our wikuoms. ” Arana nodded at the mention of eels; they were his bond with Jinot. “The government give our reserve to those Scotland people with burning hair color, so Kuntaw led us across the water to K’taqmkuk — as the whitemen say, Newfoundland, where there were good eel rivers, good fish, and some Mi’kmaw people. For us it was good because the whites did not go into the rough parts of this place. But we did and now we live well. We come to bring Jinot back with us. Aaron was there for two years. He went to Boston. We look, we can’t find him to come here with us.”

Joseph Dogg, who had been silent during this recitation, asked softly if whitemen were not pushing into such a bountiful country. “Yes,” said Etienne, “but it is rich only for us Mi’kmaw. For whitemen who want something that makes money it is not promising. They come not to make houses, but only hunt caribou and get fish. These whitemen come to Kuntaw and ask him to take them to good fishing places. No harm can come from that.”