Annie Proulx - Barkskins

“Yes. We should meet more often. Of course, you are sometimes in Carolina.”

“Unfortunately. But I do find reasons to return to Boston.” They sat in comfortable silence. George cleared his throat. “I assume, following last night’s discussion, that you would side with the colonists rather than England or France.”

“Yes, I would. And I think Uncle Bernard would support New France rather than France itself. Although he has lived in Boston so long he may be on the side of the colonies.”

“So much of the news we get is conjecture.”

“Indeed. And much is, I suspect, deliberately misleading.”

George stretched out his legs and broke into their meditations. “Dear cousin, I have a somewhat private question for you.”

“Ah?”

“Have you ever clapped eyes on our uncle Outger?”

“Yes. But only once. The same day that you saw him.”

“I? I have never seen him. He is a mysterious and unknown figure to me.”

“No, no. You saw him. Surely you remember that day when we gave the birds great happiness? It was springtime and we must have been seven or eight years old. Not older.”

“That occasion of the birds’ rejoicing is fixed forever in my memory. But what of Uncle Outger?”

“Do you not remember a thin little man with wild eyes spreading bedsheets over a table and telling us to get away from him?”

“I do. I remember his violent expostulations and the way he swung the sheets around as though he were raising sails. Surely that wasn’t—”

“That was Uncle Outger. He is said to have many connections abroad, men of science to whom he writes and sends specimens of plants and weeds.”

“That mad old—? That man is our famous uncle Outger? He sends weeds to men of science?”

“Indeed. To them the weeds of New England are novel.”

“So that was Uncle Outger. I am horrified.” He called for two more hot rum flips. “My truest memory is of the birds and what we found in that old trunk.”

The innkeeper brought the hot drinks, the cousins held up their glasses and remembered.

Their parents had been closeted with the mad uncle in what they called the “old assembly room.” The boys had explored the house, crept up the creaking narrow stairs to an attic. A small and filthy window let in the only light. There was a desiccated owl carcass in one corner, which gave them a pleasant frisson. A leathern trunk stood against a low wall and they were drawn to it, worked at the rusty hasp, trying to guess what might be inside, then leapt back as the lid flew up with a crash and showered them with dust and owl feathers. They waited. George then walked boldly up to the trunk and looked inside. With a scream he bolted for the stairs crying, “It’s alive!” Young Piet galloped beside him. “What? What was it? A wolf?”

“Maybe a wolf! Maybe a Indan! It was a horrible hairy thing. It looked at me. It moved!”

It took long minutes for them to creep up the stairs again. All was quiet. The trunk stood open, the owl lay in its corner.

They approached the trunk, looked inside. The thing, all twists and tangles, did not move very much, but it gave off a sense of suppressed liveliness. Piet reached inside very slowly and touched it, then sprang back.

“Very hairy,” he said. “Nasty.”

It was George’s turn to touch it. He did so and even, to show his boldness, closed his fingers on the mass for a few seconds before backing away. In truth they both knew what it was but it served their mood to pretend it was an incarnation of evil. Piet wrenched at the begrimed attic window and raised it to admit light.

At last they lifted the mass and for the first time in more than thirty years Duquet’s wig resurfaced. They hauled it around the attic, draped it like a shroud over the owl, tried to throw it at each other though it was heavy. At last George dragged it over to the window and stuffed it through the opening. It fell on the ground below with the whoosh of a gassy cow.

“George Pickering! Young Piet!” called Patience from below. “What antic gambols are you practicing up there? You are making more noise than the militia. Go out into the garden at once.”

In the fresh air their prize looked less interesting. Piet got a strip of leather from the stable and tied it onto the wig. They ran with it, the hairy mass bounding and gathering twigs. When Piet’s mother Mercy called them to come and have a dish of apple slump, they left it in the brambles. Later the adults returned to the assembly room, ever talking, and the cousins drifted outside once more. A marvelous sight! Birds were wrenching hairs from the wig.

“They’re building their nests with it,” said Piet. “They are very well pleased,” said George. They watched for a long time and even as their carriage drove away in late afternoon they saw birds flying in the direction of the garden. In this adventure a childhood friendship formed.

• • •

“Yes,” said George, who knew nothing of his grandfather Charles Duquet, “it was the memorable day of mad Uncle Outger’s wig. Had he seen us he would have become madder.”

Young Piet got up and unnecessarily prodded the fire, driven by masculine instinct. Fresh sparks roared up the chimney and heat pulsed out.

“That’s the way,” said George as the warmth licked his face. “And what of your brother, Sedley? He was not at the funeral or the gathering.”

“No, Eugenia is near her time and Dr. Perry advised complete bedrest. Sedley felt he should stay with her as she is very delicate — and may not survive.”

Into George’s mind leapt a cruel sentence he had read somewhere in his London days, the comment about colonial American women by a Mr. Ward: “the Women, like Early Fruit, are soon ripe and soon Rotten.”

Piet talked on. “Moreover, Sedley always disliked old Forgeron so Father excused him.” He sat down again and looked into his toddy mug; still plenty in it. “Do you ever return to London since your studies?”

“No. Though I very much like voyages. You know, I wanted to follow the sea but Father insisted I read law. Our fathers seem to think only on business. Business and business again.” Everyone in the family knew of George’s fondness for sea adventure tales, stories of shipwreck and castaways, ships that disintegrated in violent storms, wild men with spears on remote islands who captured sailors and ate them raw, rogue waves that swallowed entire fleets. When the London bookseller sent a copy of Defoe’s The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, George was enamored for weeks and read the book over and over.

“I am glad to hear you like voyages, as we may be making one. Father recently had a letter from Uncle Outger, that uncle you have utterly forgotten. He plans a trip to Amsterdam next year to see his aged mother and sister, Doortje. Father says we must all go as Grandmother Cornelia is very old and infirm. And we cousins have never seen Auntie Doortje.”

They talked for a while about the ongoing wars, Major Rogers and his bands of ruffians, putting off the moment of going out into the night. But it was late. Piet looked at the handsome watch pinned to his waistcoat. “I dream that the colonies will unite. At the moment there is jealousy and business competition among them. For Duke and Sons there is much that should be changed, beginning with certain difficulties in North Carolina. I hope we may meet and work out ways to improve the company’s income when you and I and Sedley are in a position to do so.”

“And improve the Duke social standing. At present, ignored as we are, it is damned difficult to meet girls of interest and with good connections.” Piet got up, paid the innkeeper, put on his heavy cloak and moved toward the door. “Are you coming?” he said to George.