Barkskins

by Annie Proulx

  • • •

  For Bernard it would be a quick trip. He planned to return after a month. The others could stay as long as they wished; indeed, George Pickering talked of a European tour—excluding France because of the war—which Jan and Bernard encouraged. But Nicolaus said no to Piet, who wished to join his cousin. George Pickering was well enough pleased to travel alone as he planned a private adventure in whoring and drinking and preferred not to have a witness, no matter how congenial. It was too bad to miss France, which he had always heard was the apogee of depravity.

  “You, Piet, have the responsibility of the pitch plantation,” said Nicolaus. “You cannot attempt such a tour. I had thought we might send Henk Steen to oversee the plantation if you wished to travel for a few months, but he made a scene. He said he was unsuited for the responsibility. Apparently he has moral scruples on slavery. On my return I plan to replace Steen with a harder-headed man. He may take his moral scruples elsewhere.”

  There was but one day until they sailed and still Outger had not arrived. It was unthinkable to sail without him—the voyage had been at his urging. Bernard talked with Captain Strik, a dour old Dutchman who disliked passengers no matter how well they paid. He was pleased when they died at sea and had to be pitched overboard. Now he said he would sail at the appointed time, Outger Duquet or no. He already had the passenger’s money and if that passenger chose not to arrive in a timely fashion, why then he could walk to Amsterdam. He wheezed out a laugh.

  • • •

  Piet and George Pickering hung over the rail keeping watch for the infamous uncle. Their patience was rewarded. Piet clattered down to Bernard’s quarters and found him writing in his red leather business book.

  “Uncle! He is here. In a coach. Followed by three wagons of trunks and boxes.”

  Bernard followed his nephew up on deck and saw Outger. He resembled Charles Duquet though he lacked his father’s muscle mass and shrunken jaw. Limp yellow hair stuck out from under his tie wig, but the pale eyes had the piercing Duquet focus. He was thin and very white, obviously one who lived indoors.

  Outger ignored Bernard and rushed to the captain’s cabin, where he yammered and jawed for a quarter of an hour. When he came out again six sailors followed him off the ship to carry his boxes and trunks on board, stowing them in the extra quarters Outger had engaged. A fourth wagon holding a massive packing crate arrived at the dock. It took twelve sailors to move it up onto the deck, where it stayed, covered with a tarpaulin and lashed down. The sailors, laughing and biting Outger’s coins, returned to their duties. Outger examined Bernard, displeased at what he saw—a heavy, aging man, somewhat gimpy.

  “Welkom, broeder,” said Bernard. Outger pursed his lips.

  “Please to remember, Bernard, that we are not brothers. My parents may have adopted you and the others, but we are, most emphatically, not blood brothers.”

  “I am in no danger of forgetting that. Yet we were ever closer to your father than you yourself.”

  He was surprised when Outger laughed. “Yes, yes. But that’s hardly an enviable distinction. The man was a brute.”

  “He was also a very good businessman, to our mutual advantage—yours as well as mine. A great pity for Duke and Sons when he vanished.”

  “Quite. But amidst all the fanciful imaginings put forward I wonder you have never suspected that he was sickening for the smallpox, which was very prevalent in those days, and went into the forest alone and died of it? It is logical, I think.”

  “You may be right.”

  “Yes. And now that we’ve got the spleenishness out of the way shall we try for civility as we must travel in each other’s pockets for the next six weeks?”

  “That would please me inordinately. And I am glad to see you.” They were like two terriers sniffing and circling.

  “And I to see you, though I know you doubt it. But tell me, who are those goggling monkeys staring at me?” He gestured toward the ship’s rail.

  “That one with the watch chain on his vest is young Piet, one of Nicolaus’s sons. Piet oversees our pitch production plantation in Carolina. The other is George Pickering Duke, Jan’s son, recently returned from London, where he read law at the Inns of Court. Missing is Sedley, Piet’s brother. He has just become a father and is staying in Boston with his wife.” He took a breath and turned to his nephews.

  “Gentlemen—this is Outger Duquet, of whom you have heard.”

  They had also heard Outger’s disclaimer of kinship with Bernard and were rather at a loss how to address him. Outger saw their confusion and said, “You may call me Uncle as long as we all understand it to be an address of respect for an elder rather than a claim to a nonexistent kinship.” He spoke as though he were a prince of the blood.

  “Thank you, Uncle,” said Piet; George mumbled the same.

  “We will meet again at the captain’s table,” said Outger haughtily and went below to arrange his belongings.

  • • •

  The dinner was reasonably pleasant, even Captain Strik twisting a half smile out of his crusty features now and then. When pressed for his opinion about danger from French warships he said, “I heard this very morning that the British have captured more than two hundred French ships. The French are concerned for their West Indies trade, and for Nova Scotia. I doubt the few of their ships under way will waste time chasing a Dutch merchant.”

  When the pudding had come and gone a good port arrived and the older men took out their smoking paraphernalia. Uncle Outger flourished a yellow tobacco pouch with horrid claws.

  “It is made from the foot of an albatross. All the bones were drawn out and the leather well tanned. Many parts of the albatross have uses—the beak makes an admirable clip to keep papers from flying apart. And the flesh is as tasty as any pheasant.”

  “And where did you happen to capture an albatross?” asked Jan.

  Outger waved his hand eastward.

  Jan peppered him with questions. “Will you spend considerable time in Amsterdam?”

  “Not at all. I’ll have a few days with my mother and sister, Doortje. Then away to the University of Leiden to meet with scholars of natural history. I have been in correspondence with some of these learned men for decades, and although I feel I know them well, we have never met.” He swigged the port. “Nor would they know me if we were to be introduced this very moment. As a caution I have ever used a disguised name in my correspondence with them.” He went on to say that he had derived that mysterious name by writing the alphabet in a circle and choosing the letters opposite those of his last name. As an added precaution he then reversed the order of those letters and came up with his secret correspondence name—Etdidu.

  “Very clever,” said Nicolaus, humoring him. He forbore to ask why Outger felt such a pressing need for anonymity. Bernard was both gratified and disconcerted that he had been correct about Outger. The man, penned up in Charles Duquet’s Penobscot Bay house for decades, had developed into a full-blown crank—a code name, worthless plants and who knew what else?

  “What is your subject of interest if I may ask?” he asked.

  “Various. The flora of the New World. Indian artifacts and descriptions of their strange rites. Weather manifestations peculiar to Penobscot Bay. Mathematical conundrums. And my invention, now situated on the ship’s deck with the kind compliance of Captain Strik.”

  The captain bobbed his head.

  “My invention, which I prefer not to discuss. And very much more.” Outger, smoking his pipe fiercely, helped himself to a final ladle of pease and another boiled potato.

  “It sounds as though you may be there for some months, if not years.” Bernard watched Outger swish his potato through the greenish pond of pease.

  “At least a year. I shall make my home in Amsterdam or Leiden, depending which I find more salubrious. I might live with Doortje; her letters show she has many of the same interests in natural history as I. Or I might stay with the men of science in Leiden—if my invention c
aptures their approval. However, I am aware they may see me as a hopelessly ignorant colonial and bid me adieu. Though I do not think so. I know any number of things of which they do not dream. We shall see, eh?” And he puffed out a forceful cloud of smoke and a few flecks of pease.

  Jan hoped Outger would remain in Holland for the rest of his life. Then Duke & Sons could finally get possession of the great pine table in the Penobscot house.

  But Nicolaus, who spent much time with the company’s contract tree cutters, saw Outger had some similarity with the half-unbalanced men who came in from the isolation of the woods. The forest had made them strange—“woods-queer”—as some called it. They leapt with fright at any loud noise, they took their pay and then stormed back into the office an hour later demanding to be compensated—and were flustered when Henk Steen showed them their Xs or signatures on the receipts. But Nicolaus understood. The moment of payment had been too matter-of-fact; there had been no ceremony, no release from the tensions of solitude and dangerous work. He invited the overwrought barkskins to a nearby tavern for a drink. He urged them to tell him of the perils of the recent job—the catface growth that caused a tree to twist and fall badly, illnesses and other afflictions, unseen tree limbs that hurtled down, food shortages, troublesome men. An hour or so of putting the past into the past restored their hearts. It was the same, he thought, with Outger. He would take the man aside and urge him to talk of his invention and the difficulties he had suffered in creating it—whatever it was.

  It was at dinner that Etdidu shone most brightly. He ate rapidly, like a dog, hunching and gulping so he then could command the conversation. He dominated the talk with a succession of bizarre tales, all recounted as though he had experienced them himself, an impossibility, thought Bernard, unless he possessed the power of ubiquity. It was difficult to grasp the tendrils of these stories, which emerged from intertwined sentences spangled with English, French, Dutch and fragments of some Algonkian tongue. The rest of the diners were forced into a zone of silence.

  He spoke of hurricanes that sought out Papist churches, of mandrakes, rains of blood, burial vaults where unseen forces shifted coffins from their positions and disgorged their contents onto the floor. He knew of birds that built their nests of cinnamon sticks, and others that used only the entrails of sea lions for the purpose. He described cities of ice floating in the polar ocean, leaps of death from high places and persons who could leave their earthly bodies at night, transmute into mosquitoes and annoy their neighbors. As proof of this he advanced a description of a Paris baker who, in mosquito guise, feasted on the blood of a handsome mademoiselle, was slapped by the bitee for his impudence and died on the windowsill as he sought to escape, in his human shape, but horribly squashed.

  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 sail
s 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.