Annie Proulx - Barkskins

Bernard grew irritated with Outger’s monopoly of talk. “Surely you do not expect us to believe that you yourself actually went to the isle of Cagayan Sulu and saw cannibal vampires at their fell banquets?”

“ Non, non, not I personally. But my good friend E. Skertchley of Dublin wrote me the full description as he witnessed it. As I read his letter, terror palsied my limbs.”

“As it has mine. Excuse me, gentlemen. I must retire while my mental abilities are still intact.”

George Pickering and Piet were delighted. If one had to have a mad uncle, Outger was tremendous. They especially liked the mosquito story. It was a new comprehension of insect pests. Who knew if it might not be Genghis Khan plunging his proboscis into one’s flesh?

• • •

Captain Strik kept a lookout in the crow’s nest from dawn until full dark scanning the sea for possible French sails pricking the horizon. There were French ships faster than a laden merchant, and many evenings he stayed on deck, taking his meal standing until some distant speck of white was identified. In the third week of the voyage the weather showed storm signs: swells that the captain called “dogs running before their master,” heavier seas, increasingly overcast sky, and the wind moaning in the rigging. George Pickering strode about the deck sucking in the salty wind, leaning over the rail to stare at the leaping froth. The sailors all had huge misshapen hands and their faces seemed baked by the sun into corroded metal. Since the first day of the voyage he had pestered the crew with questions, particularly Wigglesworth, the heavily muscled ruffian with a beard like a wheat field whom they had seen in the tavern dancing a hornpipe two nights before they embarked. Bernard noticed Wigglesworth tried to dodge George Pickering, who was always asking for a rollicking chantey, not understanding that the songs were tailored to certain kinds of work as hauling at halyards, at the pumps, at stamp and go. Captain Strik frowned at this quizzing of his crew but gnawed his lower lip and said nothing.

Outger daily inspected the lashings holding his invention in place on the deck. “She’s sound, she’s bound, she can’t shift around,” he said. When he said it at the dinner table before launching into another fable, the captain shook his head.

Said Outger/Etdidu, “My old friend Captain Pearfowle of Iceland escaped a severe storm in a singular manner. His ship was off Cape Circumcision’s rocky coast when a storm forced them nearer the jagged cliffs. He had fitted out with eighteen huge anchors and nine large barrels, one for himself and each of the eight crewmen. The storm made foundering their likely fate, but he dropped the anchors, pulled the wood stopper in the bilges and took refuge under his barrel as did each of the sailors. The ship sank, and they with it, but in their upended barrels they had enough air to breathe until the storm passed.”

Captain Strik listened to this with a curious expression. “And then?” he asked menacingly.

“Why then — they plugged the hole, bailed away and emptied the water out, and continued on their way.”

“ Stilte! Silence! This is a foc’s’le yarn that tests my temper, sir. I’ll have no more of these blatherings. Kindly take your dinner in your stateroom for the remainder of the voyage.” He found Outger Duquet a source of irritation and discontent; it was best to dampen his squibs. And he intended to have a word with George Pickering. Outger and George Pickering had greatly reinforced Captain Strik’s hatred of passengers.

But if Captain Luther Pearfowle’s storm was imaginary, the tempest that caught Bladwesp was terrifyingly real. Great seas rose and fell on them with shuddering crashes. The bare masts groaned and the rigging ropes howled. A black monster swelled on the horizon, raced toward them, then sprang on the Bladwesp with terrible weight, and the topgallant section of the foremast broke in a tangle of ropes and torn canvas. There was a grinding noise; the ship rolled, listed. As quick as an eel grasping its prey Captain Strik himself ran onto the deck with an ax, slashed the ropes holding down Outger’s invention and leapt back. The Bladwesp shrugged off the heavy case, which smashed through the rail and sank like the original rock. The ship, relieved of this weight, rose up ripped and leaking but afloat.

For the next two days the ship’s carpenters worked on the damaged mast, cutting away the splinters and ruined wood and replacing it with a new top section stored in the hold.

Outger locked himself in his cabin. They could hear him expostulating and excoriating the captain for hours. He emerged the next day haggard and morose, eyes blazing in a sore countenance, his fingers crooked into claws.

Nicolaus, fearing for Captain Strik, tried to calm the situation. “I am truly sorry about your lost invention,” he said.

Outger/Etdidu glared at him with red eyes. “I do not know what you mean. There is no invention. There never was an invention. It was simply a box to pique fools.”

“But the weight!”

“ Steenen. Stones. New England granite.” And Etdidu turned away.

• • •

Captain Strik liked to put on a smart appearance when entering port, and when they were a week away he gave the order to shift sails, a difficult procedure demanding intense concentration and extraordinary effort for two days. George Pickering Duke, his mouth open, watched three men to a yardarm struggling to unbend the old sails from their spars from the topgallants down. One of the men on the yardarm above was Wigglesworth, the hornpipe dancer whom George Pickering admired.

From the deck George Pickering bellowed, “Wigglesworth! Give us a chantey, Wigglesworth!” The sailor twisted his head around at the sound of his name, just as a sudden burst of wind puffed the sail and broke the temporary slender rope yarns securing it. The sail jerked away from Wigglesworth’s hand and its convulsive twitch knocked the sailor loose and sent him cartwheeling down.

“Ah, God!” said George Pickering. Wigglesworth clutched, fell, hit a yardarm below and bounced off into the sea. George Pickering rushed to the side. Wigglesworth floated faceup in the center of a spreading wash of blood. Before George Pickering could think what to do two sailors had thrown lines over the side and were down in the water, rigging a bowline around the injured man’s chest.

“Haul away!” shouted one of the swimmers. “Haul!”

Captain Strik emerged from his cabin with a threaded needle, a pair of scissors and a swab. He snipped away the bloody hair, wiped Wigglesworth’s head, already well rinsed in salt water, and quickly stitched him up. He ordered two sailors to take him to his hammock and keep an eye on him.

“He’ll come through. Head hard as a quahog shell. Maybe more confused than usual for a bit. We’ll watch how he goes.” He turned to George Pickering, who was watching with great interest.

“You are not to speak to any member of this ship’s crew for the duration of the voyage. You would do well to keep out of sight or there might be an accident. The crew regards you as a Jonah.”

“They are just jealous of my friendship with Wigglesworth,” smiled George Pickering.

“It is Wigglesworth would give you the push, Mr. GEORGE PICKERING Duke.”

Before they left Boston, Bernard had arranged the hire of a private carriage to take them around Amsterdam as he was not sure if Cornelia and Doortje had a stable and conveyances. Outger had made his own arrangements. A wealthy merchant to whom he had sent crates of sassafras over the years had offered him the use of his berlin, horses and coachman.