Annie Proulx - Barkskins

The dirty Yanks offered choices: be returned to the south as a prisoner of war; take an oath of allegiance and enlist in the U.S. Army or Navy; take the oath and be sent north to labor on public works; or take the oath and return home if that home lay within the Union Army lines. Brace and Van Dipp scorned these alternatives. But the day came when both showed symptoms of scurvy and Van Dipp said, “I am goin to take their goddamn oath and join their goddamn army and get out a the goddamn rain, get the goddamn hell out a here. Can’t git much worse than this and maybe find somethin I kin eat. Sick a goddamn raw rat.” Both took the oath and the two new Galvanized Yankees were sent off to fight the Indians in Texas. Van Dipp had never imagined such a dry hard place existed in the world. The sun rushed up in a tide of gilt that became the flat white of noon, then the torpid decay of visibility in an evening dusk still throbbing with accumulated heat. Brace was felled by arrows and lay for nine hours in the dust hearing the scream of a redtail cut the incandescent sky, but Van Dipp was never wounded. Mustered out, they went back to Georgia briefly, recoiled from Reconstruction, found their families recoiled from them and called them traitors.

Together they returned to Chicago, where the city was literally exploding with demands for carpenters. Hundreds of people wanted houses built yesterday. During a rare week of idleness Van Dipp said, “Parker, let’s don’t wait until we got the next job. We-all kin make up a stack of windows and doors beforehand. No telling what we’ll build, but I guarantee she’ll have windows and a door.” They added cupboards and sets of stairs and even wall sections that could be hauled to a site. It made putting up a house noticeably faster. It was this habit of prefabrication that led to a partner and a grander idea.

One morning, as hot and humid as only a Chicago summer day could be, a sharp-angled man in a wrinkled linen suit came into the workshop and stood looking at the stacks of made-up windows and staircases stored there.

“Good day. Do I have the pleasure of greeting Van Dipp and Brace?”

“Don’t guarantee how much pleasure is in it, but that’s us,” said Van Dipp. “Who-all mought you be?”

“Charles Munster Weed, sir, an architect. I have a contract to build a street of ten houses and I want good carpenters who will work quickly. You have that reputation. Are you currently involved in a construction project?” He looked pointedly at the extra windows and stairs.

“Not much this minute. Them’s frames and stairs we make up ahead to save us time. Doors and frames, pantry cupboards and such.”

When Weed learned that several of his houses stood right in front of him only waiting for assembly, he hired the two carpenters on the spot. The work went as merrily as kittens playing with feathers.

They met again a week after Weed’s houses were finished and the architect’s almost rabid enthusiasm fertilized the Idea; he understood where their preconstruction process could go. “Why, you could build a town that way. You could have a dozen different designs of houses so people could pick the one they liked, you could pack one or more up and ship them to wherever on the railroad.” His voice rose to an unmasculine pitch.

“We know where they-all need it, too,” said Brace. “Out on them ol prairies. No trees, no wood, but they got a have houses. Some a them are a-buildin dirt houses, full a bugs and snakes. They want barns. They want churches. I guess they would buy a house all packaged, ready to go. But the problem is it takes money to git them packages built.”

“And we ain’t got it,” said Van Dipp.

“Schoolhouses,” raved the architect, rowing his arms back and forth. “Shops and courthouses. They need towns and this is a way to get one to them.”

“We can bundle the parts up and ship by rail. Make the crates the right size fit in a farm wagon.”

“Yes! Yes! I could design different models, let the customers choose what they want. You listen to me! I got some investment money. I’d like to work with you boys — if you are willing.” They were willing and on the spot formed Van Dipp, Brace and Weed, and named their venture Prairie Homes.

• • •

More than a year had passed since Lavinia had sent the two genealogists out to search. Another autumn was closing in. Now she had a letter from R. R. Tetrazinni, who wrote that he had “discovered something you may find interesting” and wished an appointment. Lavinia named a day in late summer just before Duke’s Inventor’s Exhibition. To be fair she wrote to Sextus Bollard and asked what he had found. She was surprised when a letter came back from Bollard’s nephew, Tom Bollard, saying Mr. Bollard had returned from foreign parts in a grave condition and had died shortly thereafter; he, Tom, had taken over the bookshop and would send on the papers his uncle had amassed for Lavinia. These arrived before Tetrazinni’s visit, and Lavinia read that every one of Bollard’s leads had played out in a dead end. Charles Duquet had left no trace in Parisian records and it was thought that any papers naming his people had likely burned in the French Revolution. Of the Dutch connection Lennart Vogel had been the last remaining relative.

• • •

R. R. Tetrazinni arrived punctually. His red beard was trimmed close and his spectacles transmuted to a gold-rimmed pince-nez. He carried two leather cases. Annag brought him a cup of coffee and put it near his elbow. He took out his papers and began a long recitation of his travels and discoveries. Annag Duncan sat near, taking a few notes. Lavinia listened with increasing impatience. Why could he not get to the point?

“Mr. Tetrazinni, let me ask you bluntly, have you found any Duke descendants?”

“Indeed I have. Though I fear you may not relish the disclosure of their identity.” He cleared his throat and grinned, postponing the delicious moment. “I do not know how much you know of your family tree. In a nutshell. Charles Duquet adopted three sons, Nicolaus and Jan from an Amsterdam orphanage and another, Bernard, from the streets of La Rochelle. In those times adoptions were very informal, though he treated the boys as his sons and left them his goods in equal parts. You likely know that you are descended from Nicolaus, who married Mercy and with whom he had three children — Patience, Piet and Sedley, the last named your grandfather. In other words, you have no Duquet blood flowing in your veins, only that of the adopted son Nicolaus.” He took a great swig of coffee and watched Lavinia’s complexion redden.

“Back to Charles Duquet. After the adoption of those boys his Dutch wife, Cornelia Roos, bore him two legitimate children, Outger Duquet and Doortje Duquet. Doortje’s line died out with the death of her only son, Lennart Vogel, an unmarried bachelor. Outger Duquet lived for some years in Penobscot Bay in Maine, and took an Indian concubine. She gave birth to a daughter, Beatrix Duquet, on whom her father lavished attention and education. But when he removed to Leiden the daughter remained in Maine. She eventually reverted to native ways and, as near as I can be sure, married a métis named Kuntaw Sel, descended from Mi’kmaq Indians and a French habitant. ” Lavinia’s cup clattered in its saucer.

“It seems Beatrix Duquet and Kuntaw Sel, who were legally married, had two sons — Josime Sel and Francis-Outger Sel. The only living bloodline descendants of Charles Duquet are the grandchildren of Josime and Francis-Outger. I have not finished my investigation as to these specific descendants’ names and dwelling places. It would involve trips to Canada and contact with remnants of the Indian tribes. I did not endeavor to undertake this until I knew your wishes. However, these people would be the rightful heirs of Charles Duquet — if one counts only blood relationship as meaningful. I personally think the adopted sons’ lines of descent have a stronger claim to the family fortune than the still-unidentified Indians. After all, we know that possession is nine points of the law. Here. It is all in my report.” He handed her a sheaf of pages in an almost insolent manner and his tone indicated those unnamed Indians had a valid claim to the Duke empire.