Annie Proulx - Barkskins

The trip was wretched, storm after storm and in the intervals between, rough seas. A set of monster waves cleaned the deck of the spars stored there and lightning struck their mainmast. Putting up a new mast in the heaving ship cost two men their lives and Aaron expected he would be the dreaded third man. He lay in his hammock trying to think how it would feel when he was pitched into that lurching brine, how long the drowning would take. He asked the old hands, who agreed there was sure to be a third death before they docked, and heard the comforting news that it would be over very quickly, just one or two water-choked gasps from the shock of the cold water, “and then you don’t feel nothin.” During the voyage Aaron grew in strength, knowledge and hatred for Crumble. He swore to himself that if he survived he would kill the man once they were ashore, but the bosun melted away as soon as his boots hit the London docks.

It took weeks, weeks of asking and walking warily along the great wharves in the odorous London fog before he found a ship though he cared not whether bound for Canada or Boston. Day after day the acid fog was so dense that men five feet away were wraiths. In those weeks he began to feel he had somehow changed, and in no minor way. Physically he felt well, strong and alert. He was nineteen, had become watchful, more inclined to read the body movements and faces of people around him. He wanted to go back to Kuntaw’s Mi’kmaw band. “Likely old Kuntaw is dead by now,” he said aloud. Maybe Etienne was in his place, one of the other men. He would try again with a more willing heart. His presumption of himself as the central figure in any scene had been scuttled by the bosun James Crumble.

In a grogshop one afternoon he heard two sailors talking coarsely about what they would do in Halifax. He moved closer, listened, said, “Halifax bound? Ship lookin for crew?”

They gazed at him, at his callused hands, tarry canvas pants. “ Excel sails tomorrow mornin. Go talk to the bosun. He keeps aboard all night — Conny Binney.”

Binney was a red-bearded good-natured fellow from Maine, for Maine men were as common as hempen ropes on the wharves of the world. “Wal, yes, sailin for Halifax, carryin China trade goods first for Halifax, a load a China dishes and some porcelain dawgs — at least they call ’em dawgs but look more like pawlywawgs to me. Cobblestone ballast. Ye ain’t green, are ye? Not a landsman? Sailed afore the mast, have ye?” Aaron said he wasn’t so very green as he’d sailed on the Elsie Jones. Binney raised his eyebrows.

“And so you attended Miss Crumble’s Academy for Poor Sailor Lads?”

“I did, sir, and enjoyed a rigorous education. And survived.”

Binney laughed. Aaron was hired as an able seaman. After Crumble, Conny Binney seemed too easy, giving orders in a pleasant voice. It seemed unnatural. The ship traveled against brisk westerlies, beating to windward all the way, and Aaron’s spirits lifted with the exhilaration of sailing home, no matter what waited at the far end.

Going directly to Halifax would save him the torturous overland journey from Boston. He could walk to Pitu’pok, the Mi’kmaw settlement on the shore of the saltwater inland lake, in two or three days. He thought he could find Mi’kmaq there who would take him to K’taqmkuk. And the niggling question he had been pushing down kept kicking its way back into his thought: why was he going back to the Mi’kmaw life? He had a calling now, he could make a sailor’s living. He could go back to the sea if he had to, as long as it wasn’t a-whaling.

• • •

Long before land came in sight they could smell it — a mix of softwood smoke and drying cod blended with the familiar salt of the North Atlantic. A rushing flood of joy made Aaron grin foolishly at nothing. He got his pay, shook hands with Binney, who said, “If ye want a berth on the Excel again, we be back here come April or May. Nother v’yage t’ China.”

Aaron hurried through the knotted streets of Halifax, his mind filling with imagined conversations as he tried to explain why he had returned. Etienne had been angry when he left. Yet in his new sense of self he was glad to be back. He was ready to trap and construct weirs, to fish. He no longer expected his relatives to honor him simply because he had come to them, because he was Jinot’s son. His sea skills might somehow find a use. He’d see what he’d see.

The trail through the forest he remembered was now mostly cleared land with settlements and a few farms, the too-familiar sight of settlers burning swathes of woodland. He met two whitemen children driving cattle along the shore. As they passed they began screaming “dirty Indan bug-eater” and threw clamshells at him. The ragged trail now showed trees again — sprouts growing up from stumps. This was the way he had taken five years earlier, after his father left with Mr. Bone. A Mi’kmaw family had fed him and given him a place to sleep, had told him Sels had all gone to K’taqmkuk, and that if he wanted them he should go to Sydney, the easternmost port, and send word over the water. Someone would come. He remembered the man’s name as Joe Funall. Just another mile he thought and he would see that wikuom near the trail. He walked farther than a mile and knew he had somehow missed it, turned back, looking hard into the scrappy woods. Some distance in he saw a few poles. That was the right place. He went toward them. Yes, it had been a wikuom once but was now weathered poles with rotted skins and bark at the base. They must have moved to the Mi’kmaw village a few miles farther on. He picked up his pace.

He was frightened by the village. Shabby wikuoms sat on rough ground amid slash and baked patches of bare earth. He saw smoke issuing from only one wikuom. There were no dogs, no people in sight. He walked slowly toward the wikuom making the smoke, but as he passed a derelict jumble of poles with only saplings instead of bark for a covering he heard someone cough, a retching, choking cough that sounded like it was tearing out someone’s lungs. He bent to the opening. “Hello. Anybody there?” Stupid question. Of course there was someone there, someone dying of violent spasms of coughing. He peered into the gloom and saw a bundle of rags jerk forward and cough and cough and cough. The more he looked the more he saw — there were others in there, emaciated skeletal arms rose as if to ward him off, huge feverish eyes fixed him. An infant lay naked and dreadfully still on the ground. He went to the next wikuom, where a comatose man lay on the earth, only the very faint rise and fall of his rib cage showing he lived. He did not speak. Farther along in the sole wikuom issuing smoke sat a man and woman, both very thin, but able to move and talk. The man said their names — Louis and Sarah Paul.

“What has happened?” asked Aaron, wondering what was wrong with himself. He was choking, hardly able to speak. He told them he wanted to find the way to K’taqmkuk, where others of his family lived. But here, in this ruined village, what had happened here, what had overcome these people, where were Joe Funall and his wife, who had been so kind to him years earlier? Whatever had occurred also might have befallen the Sel clan in K’taqmkuk.

“They die. Everybody sick, no food, die, die, die. Children all die. Mi’kmaw people now walk around, look for food, eat dirt, no firewood, whitemen shoot, say it their firewood. We make potato garden but too many rain. Potato all go rot. We come any place, try make wikuom, always whitemen come and set fire, come with clubs and sticks. They drive us on. Nowhere to go. Sometime good whiteman give food, coats. Only look for more good whitemen. Mi’kmaw people walk lookin, keep walkin. Now lie down and die.”