Annie Proulx - Barkskins

“They said the North Indians had so many otter pelts they paved the streets of their villages with them. They said the North Indians traveled with the Russians and all got sick.” He stretched out his hand for his otter fur in Duquet’s hand and returned it to his pack.

“Did the North Indians with the Russians trade willingly with the Western Ocean Indians?”

Fernand made a deep sound. “At first, yes, then they changed. The Russians were already dead and the North Indians were dying when the Western Ocean Indians came on them. The sick North Indians did not want to trade. The Western Ocean men persuaded them.”

“Some of the persuasion was severe? Even fatal?”

Fernand was fumbling with the second pack, Toussaint clearing his throat and frowning at his brother. But Fernand, always a braggart, said, “It is true. Look at this.”

He withdrew a rolled skin and opened it out. The brilliant gold and black fur dazzled. “A tiger,” he said. “The Russians had it.” He stroked the striped pelt. “It is why the sick North Indians did not want to trade.” Toussaint turned away.

“Where is the head?” asked Duquet. “The head is valuable.”

“The Russians did not have the head. They likely ate it. One must look after oneself in this life, isn’t that right?”

“Right,” said Duquet, watching Toussaint pull the tiger skin away from his brother and roll it. They would not give up that skin readily. The old easy partnership was gone. In fact, thought Duquet, his feeling for New France was gone. Late in the night, each rolled up in his bison robe, he heard Toussaint’s voice, low and rough, oppressing his brother.

• • •

Duquet grew restless during this time with the Trépagny brothers, noting their cramped vocabularies, their repetitive stories, but he drove himself and the brothers into a short but frantic season of gathering furs, letting the Indian middlemen know he especially wanted wildcats. He kept two of the best aside as a present for Cornelia. He had told Piet of his intent to marry her, and although the captain had pursed his lips and shook his head in denial, Duquet thought he would agree when he heard of Duquet’s accumulating wealth. The girl had good teeth and looked healthy enough, with broad hips, but each of her features was off-kilter, those colorless eyes too small, the wide nose and heavy cheeks. But it was the father and his business connections, his allegiance with Captain Verdwijnen that Duquet truly wished to marry. Cornelia was to give him the sons he needed to build his business empire. He looked now beyond mere wealth.

• • •

The season passed and when the time came for Duquet to return to La Rochelle and China, Toussaint mumbled that he and Fernand would keep their share of the furs unless Duquet would pay a high price for them on the spot.

“We know several traders now,” said Toussaint. For months they had built their evening fire apart from Duquet and in the daytime conversed only with each other.

“We cannot wait years for your return, perhaps empty-handed if your pirates strike again. We need ready money,” said Fernand, “as we wish to rejoin Pierre LeMoyne. He is in France preparing an expedition to the Caribbean.” He stared at the ground as he spoke, unwilling to meet Duquet’s eyes, but the tiger was calm. The brothers had no idea what furs brought in China, nor would they ever know. Duquet had learned something about negotiations and after two days of palaver with Toussaint, who spoke for himself and Fernand, Duquet made a wondrous bargain — except for the tiger skin and the white fox furs, which they would not give up.

“I have no doubt there are many adventures in the Caribe attractive to coureurs de bois, ” he said, letting the sarcasm show. Toussaint countered with acerbity: “I understand the Dutch West Indies are a most lucrative market for lumber, and certainly nearer than France or China.” Duquet guessed the brothers were waiting for him to renew his offer of a partnership in the timber trade so that they might have the pleasure of refusing him. He said nothing. It was the parting of ways.

He rose near midnight, disappeared as silently as fog. It was many hours later that the brothers discovered the tiger skin, the fox and otter furs were gone. Fernand cursed and said there was no verse in Pibrac to ease the situation, but at least they had got a little hard money.

“Let us drink a toast to that man whose sugar mouth disguises his gall-choked heart.” They opened the jenever and drank to the riddance of Duquet.

“Perhaps you’d rather have coffee,” mocked Toussaint.

“Oh no, it is too bitter for one so backward as I,” answered Fernand.

He could barely waste time sleeping, for his mind was in ferment, his body burned with the intense desire to get on with things. All was occurring as he had hoped. The first morning light was like an armful of dry wood tossed on a fire, and he was choking with energy and ambition as he pulled on his clothes. He despised men who slept until the sun was high — inept laggards who would never be anyone.

In Ville-Marie, before he had found the Trépagny brothers, Duquet had hired bûcherons to find and cut white and red cedar, balsam fir and fragrant sumac, others to shape and finish the wood into small boards. These were packed in odorless birch chests to preserve their natural fragrances. Indian women had gathered ginseng roots, bundles of sweetgrass, other plants and roots for him.

He chartered a ship, the Hendrik, to take him, his fragrant woods, his magic roots and furs to La Rochelle, where he would meet Captain Verdwijnen. The ship’s captain was Gabriel Deyon, the son of Captain Deyon with whom he had first traveled to France years before. The son told Duquet his father had been lost, ship and all hands aboard, in the treacherous Strait of Magellan, whose narrow passageway he had chosen as a safe alternative to Cape Horn.

“One never knows,” said Duquet piously. But he knew.

Deyon’s ship stopped at every settlement along the river. At dusk it moored for the night at Wobik and Duquet went ashore to see what changes had come in the years since he had left.

He could scarcely believe it. Where was the forest? The landscape had been corrupted. The village had swollen by fifty houses, a grain mill, a water-powered sawmill, a large sheep commons. The forest had been pushed out of sight, and in the place of woodlands were rough fields with crops growing between stumps. The muddy trail west that he remembered was now a fair road. For a moment he was frightened; if miles of forest could be removed so quickly by a few men with axes, was the forest then as vulnerable as beaver? No, the forest returned with vigor, resprouted from cut stumps, cast seeds, sent out mother roots from which new trees grew. These forests could not disappear. In New France they were vast and eternal.

• • •

One thing had not changed; Monsieur Bouchard still handled the passage money for river travel, still welcomed newcomers.

The old man, looking strong though white-haired, did not recognize him. Duquet asked him to open the ledger where he had made his mark half his lifetime earlier. He pointed.

“There. That is my ignorant mark.” A few lines above he saw the pathetically elaborate R of René Sel and asked if he was still alive.

“ Certainement. He has Monsieur Trépagny’s old house, where he lives very comfortably with his wife and children. You knew, did you not, that Claude Trépagny met his untimely end seeking you, whom he determined to punish as a runaway?”

“I did not know. He was a vindictive, unforgiving master and I was justified in leaving because of that maltraitement. He treated me badly.”