Barkskins

by Annie Proulx

  “You can’t work,” said Arana and helped him back to the bunkhouse, pulled off his trousers and looked at the knee still oozing blood from the blue and swelling cut. The knee looked strangely flat. He got water from the cook and tore a bit of rag from his extra shirt, mopped the wound and left Jinot to lie there all afternoon trying to find a position that would ease the pain.

  There was no doctor. Palmer did any necessary doctoring or burying. Arana brought him in the next day and the trader looked at Jinot’s knee, deformed when the ligament had torn and the patella moved up into the thigh; the mattock wound was red and swollen. “Christ,” he said. “You better lay up. Maine men heals pretty quick so we’ll see.” He noticed Jinot’s graying hair—the man had aged in New Zealand. He went up to the store himself and got two bottles of opium-heavy patent medicines—Sydenham’s laudanum and Dover’s powder. “Course he’s not no chicken now—older feller, you don’t heal so good.” While he was gone Arana put his hand on Jinot’s burning cheek, leaned over and said into his ear, “Rest, rest.”

  Jinot slid in and out of narcotic dreams in the bunkhouse for a week while the infected wound broke free from restraint, galloping headlong toward victory. Bright with fever, panting, he did not recognize Arana, called out to Franceway. Arana and Palmer regarded the leg, one vast black blister. Arana sighed.

  Arana and Shuttercock buried Jinot near the river at the edge of the hay field where they had cut rickers two years earlier. Before the last shovelful of earth topped the grave it began to rain. They walked back up the steep tree-bare slope sloughing off muddy soil as the rain increased. It was the beginning of a great lopping storm that loosed unreasonable torrents. The mountain streams, joined by other runaway water, raced flashing down the hills carrying rocks, ricker slash, logs, gravel, soil, the old cookhouse, and, disinterring Jinot Sel, swept his carcass out into the Pacific.

  • • •

  The old year ended trembling in storms of wind after a wild winter, but once again a fresh spring morning, pastel and calm, gave Mr. Rainburrow pleasure as he sucked in the sweet air. He left the door open and hoped for no interruptions. If he finished all his correspondence within the hour he would have the afternoon free to count and arrange the flax bales in his storeroom, but before he had written half a page he heard tramping on the earthen path and a figure loomed, entered his sunny workroom. Another followed. He thought that he had rarely seen uglier customers than the two men who stood with folded arms staring at him. One was hoop-backed and swart, an aging hunchback with obsidian eyes in a flat American Indian face. The other had even more marked Indian features and a wiry body. His inward-drawn mouth showed that he cared for neither Englishmen nor missionaries. To Mr. Rainburrow the pressed-in lips and knotted eyebrows indicated a particularly disagreeable nature.

  “Yes?” said the missionary in the brusque voice he used to dust off time wasters.

  “Joe Dogg,” said the crooked man, fishing in his pocket, then extending Mr. Rainburrow’s own letter written several years earlier. It was stained and tattered, one corner quite torn away. “I am Mr. Bone’s foreman and acting manager of the ax works. Your letter came to me. Has Mr. Bone now returned? My inquiries have remained unanswered.”

  “Oh, he—no, he—he has never returned. We are quite satisfied that he was decoyed and killed by a renegade Maori—it is quite sure that poor Mr. Bone is dead. Quite sure.”

  “What basis have you for that surety?”

  “Well,” blustered Mr. Rainburrow, “well, because it is known by some—I am not at liberty to say whom—that he was—killed. Killed and likely”—his voice dropped—“in the custom of some of these heathens, eaten.”

  Dogg grimaced, shook his head as if driving off an irritating sweat bee. “We will have proof of your assertion, sir. People do not just ‘disappear,’ people are not just ‘eaten.’ ”

  “In New Zealand it can happen. Mr. Bone was headstrong and showed no reticence in going into the forest with a native he did not know. Guile is part of the Maori nature.”

  “I ask you to produce those people who ‘know,’ ” said Joseph Dogg. “A great deal depends on being sure. And what of his money box, do you have it?”

  “I keep it in a safe place, it is in my cupboard in my sleeping room. I will get it directly.” The words tripped over each other like a too-often-repeated prayer.

  The hard-faced Indian clenching and unclenching his fists spoke loudly and angrily. “Where is Jinot Sel? I wish to see Jinot.”

  Mr. Rainburrow also had a wish—that he might be instantly transported to a desert isle. If he had never written that letter these men would have remained forever in their wretched land of rebels and upstarts.

  “He—he, too, is dead.”

  Dogg, the hunchback, who had been looking out at the harbor, spun around, spoke in a tigerish voice. “What! Jinot dead? Not possible. Never. How? When?”

  “Last year, in, in— I have forgotten the month.”

  “He died how? Or did he also ‘disappear’?”

  “He died of illness. Of blood poison. He worked as a bushman and hurt his foot. Or leg. His friend, Arana Palmer, was with him and no doubt can tell you all the particulars.”

  Joseph Dogg said in a low voice, “Perhaps you do not know that Jinot Sel was not Mr. Bone’s ‘servant’ as you surmise, but was greatly favored by him as a friend and business associate and it is to him that Mr. Bone has willed all his works and possessions, which include the ax factory in Massachusetts. And if truly he is dead, and if Jinot is also dead, then likely Mr. Bone’s holdings will shift into Jinot’s estate and go to his son, Aaron. I have the responsibility to bring all details back to Aaron Sel, who could not make the interminable journey.”

  “I am also Sel,” said the dark Indian. “Etienne Sel, an uncle of Jinot Sel although he was older than me by many years. We came to reclaim him and take him back to his home country. If what you say is true we must have his bones that he may be returned to the land where he began. This is important.”

  “I cannot speak to the whereabouts of his grave,” said Mr. Rainburrow, seeing an escape route. “I can only advise you to search out Arana Palmer, one of the sons of the trader here, Mr. Orion Palmer. He was a friend of Jinot Sel—and, I think, did bury him—where I do not know. So, I wish you good day, gentlemen, and good fortune with discovering what you wish to know.”

  “The money box, sir,” said Joseph Dogg. “I will take it in hand before we leave this place. I trust you have not availed yourself of any of the funds?” A cloud passed over the sun, briefly dimming the flood of light through the open door.

  “How dare you, sir, imply that I am a thief?” Mr. Rainburrow swelled up. The word sir hissed through his teeth.

  “Why, Mr. Rainbillow, I see that you are a clergyman of sorts, and it has been my experience that pastors, ministers, clergymen and church officials of all kinds feel entitled to use any stray funds that come their way to further their influence and control of local affairs—as well as building new churches, adding wings to existing churches, gilding the altar and such so-called good works, especially improving the parsonage or the wine cellar.”

  “I will have you know that I have not touched a ha’pence,” lied the missionary, who had, in fact, used more than a hundred pounds of Mr. Bone’s money to build the storeroom where he cached his bales of flax.

  “It will be a simple matter to judge,” said Joe Dogg, “as I know to the last penny what Mr. Bone had in that box. I have his monthly accounts up until three years ago, when correspondence ceased. He was meticulous in noting his expenditures. Before we depart I will conduct my examination of the contents of the money box and any papers he may have left. Also, you will present that proof of his demise.”

  They left the missionary biting at his thumbnail. Sunlight washed the room as before.

  • • •

  Orion Palmer leaned on his counter near the open door, his narrow temples surmounted by a wave of cresting auburn hair, his h
ard blue eyes wide open. Etienne stared at his odd face, for below the earlobes the jaws swelled out, fleshy and full, carried down to a thick neck. “My son? Which one? I have more than a dozen, all fine fellows, but I certainly do not know the whereabouts of each. Most with their mother’s people.” The trader, in an easy mood and pleased with the fine day and the flock of sheep-like clouds marching overhead, sized up the two men.

  “Your son Arana Palmer, sir,” said Etienne in the weighty voice he used with assertive whitemen. “We have heard that he knew my nephew Jinot Sel.”

  “Ayuh, he did.” The trader sighed and thought for a long moment. “Pret’ sure Arana is workin the kauri yet.” He picked his teeth with a long fingernail. “Yep, he did know Jinot, we all known him. He frighted the women wicked when he first come here. So some took a dislike to him. He died of a poisoned wound—nothin we could do. Too late for amputation and no white man doctor here—just me, and I don’t go in for cuttin men’s limbs off.” As he warmed up he became more voluble, his limber mouth stretched in the smirk of a self-regarding man. “I say he was not young or strong enough in the first place to work cuttin kauri, but the missionary put him to it so’s he could earn his passage back home. He tried. Choppin kauri calls for strong young men,” he said. “He was not so young, pret’ lame though he knew well how to handle the ax. You could see that. He said he was a Penobscot man, and maybe he was a long time ago. Them days is gone, y’see—we got circle saws and trained bullocks. Now bullocks—”

  He was ready to tell them his brilliant innovation of importing bullocks to New Zealand, for the trader had to get some indication of his importance into every conversation, but something in their intent leaning postures, their serious eyes following his lips as he spoke deterred him. He told them instead to take the steamer two harbors north and, following the map he sketched out on a broken packing-case slat, to walk the track to the Big Yam camp, where the choppers and sawyers were laying the kauri down. He wished them luck. “And I guess you want to finish your business here pretty quick as the Vigor is leaving for Port Jackson next week. We don’t get that many ships these days since the whales is all gone. Catch the Vigor and return to your own place.”

  Etienne spoke. “We only just come here. Long long trip. We see something of this new land, not leave so soon. Country pretty different to K’taqmkuk.” He stared out at the bulging forest line beyond the cutover slope hardly believing the size of the stumps.

  “Arana can show you—his mother is Maori. The Maori got a good many tapu places you best not disturb.” And the trader drew the edge of his hand across his throat.

  • • •

  The calm morning had changed; intermittent clouds now cast their stuttering shadows over the landscape. Arana, when they found him at work, was, like many Maori, handsome and strongly built with great leg muscles. There was little of the trader Orion Palmer in his appearance beyond a slightly oversize jaw. His hair hung long and snaggled. He listened to them, then said, “Come with me,” and led them through the stumps to an awkward place—a huge kauri stump surrounded by slash and the great pale arms of its severed limbs. He jumped on the flat top, the size of a barn floor, and beckoned to them to join him. “This is the very stump of the kauri Jinot was cuttin when his bad leg give way. There’s the cuts he made,” he said and pointed to the ax marks on the outer rings. Etienne touched the greying wood, old ax marks all that remained here to show that Jinot had walked the earth.

  He diverted the conversation to the peculiarities of these curious tree giants that tempted woodsmen with their perfectly knotless bodies, for he, too, had chopped trees in Maine and Nova Scotia and had never seen anything like them. Arana said they were a kind of pine.

  “Many men say,” said Arana, “that kauri is the best wood in the world.” They smoked their pipes in silence for some time. Etienne said, “What can you tell us of Jinot here?”

  “He wanted to return to you but could not. He had no money. What else could he do? Become a trader? My father would not allow that. A cook? Perhaps. But he knew the ax, he knew how to bring a tree down even if it were the biggest tree of the world. He was very skilled with axes. He made a chair one Sunday, all with his ax. I think he was lonely here, nobody talk with but me and some of the choppers. He said he never meant to come here but that man, Mr. Bone, made him do it. He did not want to cut kauri—he said they were trees of power, and we also believe this. I do not think he ever told me of his uncle.” He squinted at Etienne as if he had just jumped down from the sky.

  “He could not, for he did not know me, ha? His grandfather—my father—Kuntaw, left Penobscot a long time ago and returned to his Mi’kmaw people near Sipekne’katik river. Kuntaw got two wives after that whiteman woman, and one of them, my mother. Settlers pressed on us, the Scotlands, destroyed our eel weirs, burned our wikuoms.” Arana nodded at the mention of eels; they were his bond with Jinot. “The government give our reserve to those Scotland people with burning hair color, so Kuntaw led us across the water to K’taqmkuk—as the whitemen say, Newfoundland, where there were good eel rivers, good fish, and some Mi’kmaw people. For us it was good because the whites did not go into the rough parts of this place. But we did and now we live well. We come to bring Jinot back with us. Aaron was there for two years. He went to Boston. We look, we can’t find him to come here with us.”

  Joseph Dogg, who had been silent during this recitation, asked softly if whitemen were not pushing into such a bountiful country. “Yes,” said Etienne, “but it is rich only for us Mi’kmaw. For whitemen who want something that makes money it is not promising. They come not to make houses, but only hunt caribou and get fish. These whitemen come to Kuntaw and ask him to take them to good fishing places. No harm can come from that.”

  Joe Dogg rolled his eyes and said emphatically, “It is dangerous to bring whitemen into your country. However rough the trail, they remember it and soon begin to want it.”

  Etienne said, “We live our Mi’kmaw life. That is what we want give to Jinot.” Looking at Arana, he shifted the talk. “The trader said you were a friend to Jinot. Maybe you will tell us about this place that he came to. Maybe you will show us how you and your mother’s people live. We like to know this.”

  Arana was silent for long minutes, then said, “We will go in the bush with my sister Kahu—he kanohi komiromiro—she has the eyesight of that little bird that finds invisible insects. She knows the forest with all her senses.”

  Their excursion fell on a day of days, clear and bright at sunrise in the time of nesting birds. They were five in number, for not only did Arana’s elder sister Kahu come with her pet parrot on her shoulder, but also their young cousin Aihe, muscular and as quick of motion as the dolphin in her name. Aihe’s crinkly hair seemed alive and moving, as though each strand was a tendril reaching for a hold. Kahu’s pet kaka flashed his red underwings and shouted whenever he felt like it, which was frequently, a call that sounded to Joe Dogg like someone ripping boards off the side of a barn.

  Arana and Kahu tried to explain their country (despairingly, because it could not be explained but only lived), saying all land was owned by Maori tribes and clans, who kept forests intact for birds and only cut trees judiciously. Aihe interrupted, saying hotly that some tribal chiefs were greedy and sold their relatives’ land to whitemen of the New Zealand Company. As they walked Kahu pointed at some gnarled pohutukawa trees and said they were sacred. Springs of purest water bubbled out of the ground. In the distance they could see the swell of the forest like a great wave.

  They entered what Kahu called “the forest of Tane,” and the air became still and heavy. Above them the westerly wind stirred the treetops and always some birds rose crying out. They went silently as Kahu pointed out the tallest trees making a top roof over the forest, the lesser trees below. Joe Dogg was scandalized by the way of the rata, which began life in the high branches of other trees and, as it grew, sucking the life force from its host, sent roots downward until they reached the ea
rth and twisted together into a distorted trunk until the host tree became part of the rata.

  Late in the morning the small pieces of visible sky clouded over and Kahu said they might have a little fast-moving storm. Before she finished speaking they could hear the rain pelting down above them, beating on the leaves, though so interlaced were the treetops that no drops reached them.

  They came out of the trees as the storm pulled away, and from a lookout rock they saw pillars of mist exhaled from the folded hills. Aihe said it was Papatuanuku, the earth mother, sighing for Ranginui, the sky father, and that in the Beginning they had been glued tightly to each other in amorous conjunction, making great darkness for their god children. The children decided to separate their parents and let in light, she said, and Tane, the forest god, held them apart with trees. She asked Etienne for Mi’kmaw stories. He remembered several imperfectly, but stayed silent as he thought they would show empty against her accounts of a Maori world teeming with so many gods. The Mi’kmaq had lost their spirit world to the missionaries’ God.

  When they passed near an ongaonga Aihe pulled at Joe Dogg’s sleeve, pointed and told him it was a dangerous plant with a poison sting. “They tell of a whiteman sailor who ran away from his ship in the night. He ran into a forest where there were many ongaonga plants and he fell in them in the darkness, crying out. But the ongaonga did not spare him and he died of its stings.” A little later she caught something and passed it to Etienne—“here is a pepekemataruwai for you, we call it ‘insect with a silly face.’ ” He flung it from him, laughing.

  • • •

  Etienne was impressed that everything they saw or heard or smelled was linked to Maori gods and their feverish vengeful lives. He promised himself that when he returned to K’taqmkuk he would find old people and ask for stories of ancestors. He stared at the ocean below, glinting through the trees, and thought it looked back at him. Never in K’taqmkuk had the Atlantic Ocean fixed him with its watery eye. Was this a sign?