Barkskins: A Novel
By Annie Proulx
4/5
()
About this ebook
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year & a New York Times Notable Book
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Shipping News and “Brokeback Mountain,” comes the New York Times bestselling epic about the demise of the world’s forests: “Barkskins is grand entertainment in the tradition of Dickens and Tolstoy…the crowning achievement of Annie Proulx’s distinguished career, but also perhaps the greatest environmental novel ever written” (San Francisco Chronicle).
In the late seventeenth century two young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters—barkskins. René suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a native woman and their descendants live trapped between two cultures. But Duquet runs away, becomes a fur trader, then sets up a timber business. Annie Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over three hundred years—their travels across North America, to Europe, China, and New Zealand—the revenge of rivals, accidents, pestilence, Indian attacks, and cultural annihilation. Over and over, they seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource, leaving the modern-day characters face to face with possible ecological collapse.
“A stunning, bracing, full-tilt ride through three hundred years of US and Canadian history…with the type of full-immersion plot that keeps you curled in your chair, reluctant to stop reading” (Elle), Barkskins showcases Proulx’s inimitable genius of creating characters who are so vivid that we follow them with fierce attention. “This is Proulx at the height of her powers as an irreplaceable American voice” (Entertainment Weekly, Grade A), and Barkskins “is an awesome monument of a book” (The Washington Post)—“the masterpiece she was meant to write” (The Boston Globe). As Anthony Doerr says, “This magnificent novel possesses the dark humor of The Shipping News and the social awareness of ‘Brokeback Mountain.’”
Editor's Note
Epic…
Annie Proulx’s epic novel spans several centuries and tells a cautionary tale about deforestation. The elegant prose only solidifies the devastation at the slow death of the forest, as families build dynasties through logging, relying on the trees to build their fame and fortune. National Geographic adapted it into a series starring David Thewlis and Marcia Gay-Harden.
Annie Proulx
Annie Proulx is the author of nine books, including the novel The Shipping News, Barkskins and the story collection Close Range. Her many honors include a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and a PEN/Faulkner award. Her story ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ which originally appeared in The New Yorker, was made into an Academy Award-winning film. She lives in New Hampshire.
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Reviews for Barkskins
388 ratings43 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5North American history, family sagas and dramas, research that must have taken years, and a message/warning about ourselves and our world. All written by a master wordsmith: what's not to love?
This was certainly a reading time commitment, but even though it's over 700 pages, I don't know where cuts could have been made. The characters, places and times were meticulously described, yet were still interesting. There was one character who reminded me of Dagny Taggert, and gave me horrible flashbacks to reading Atlas Shrugged, but that is the only problem I had with the book.
All in all, this was worth every minute of reading, and it will stick with me for a very long time. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I've loved Annie Proulx's writing since I read The Shipping News when it came out in the 90's, so what I'm about to say comes from a heavy heart: I did not like Barkskins. It's not that I don't recognize it as more of her admirably great writing, nor can I even comprehend the magnitude of the task she undertook to create a story that spanned over 300 years, two families, and (I lost count) maybe a hundred distinct characters. Wow. I mean... just: wow.But sadly, none of that made me like the book. I get the theme. Trees=good. Tree cutting down=bad. I'm 100% on board with that. And the other theme? White men did well in the booming years of the new country while natives did not. I think that was the other theme, anyway. Yes, I completely agree. Atrocities abounded amongst the natives and white men were the culprits. Again, 100% onboard. But what was the point?Spanning all of those centuries, bouncing back and forth between the two bloodlines, every chapter (practically) focusing on different characters... I barely got interested in one set before having to move onto another. And nothing really tied the whole thing together, ever. Except for the trees.Did I miss something? I felt to me like a collection of short stories all linked by a couple threads, some stories longer than others, for sure, but that's about it. The rise and fall of one character rarely had anything to do with anybody else in the novel.Again, massive effort and what a phenomenal amount of work it must have been. For that alone (and the fact that her writing is sublime) I'll give it a positive rating. But sadly, for me at least, it wasn't worth the effort to read. If I could go back and give myself some advice, it would be to skip this one.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Loved this book when I started it, but less so as it went along. Beautifully written, as you would expect from Annie Proulx and brilliant in concept, but too long in my opinion. Or maybe there were too many characters. In any event, I didn't connect emotionally as much as with her previous work.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What an extraordinary book. It encompasses the history of the major North American forests from the 17th century to the present day, and combines this with two loosely connected family stories. This ought to be too complex and ambitious to work, but for me it got more compulsive the more I read.At the start of the book we meet two poor Frenchmen, Rene Sel and Charles Duquet, who are contracted to work for a settler from a French aristocratic family in a forest in New France. Duquet runs away while Sel remains loyal, and is persuaded to marry a Mi'kmaw Indian woman who has been contracted as a cook. Duquet is an ambitious wheeler dealer who starts a business empire which concentrates on logging, while Sel's family lead a marginal existence with the vestiges of the Mi'kmaw. Both families are followed all the way to the present day, and Proulx exposes the way in which the forestry industry destroyed most of America's primeval forests and most of the Indian tribes' homelands and sources of food. The book is full of memorable characters (Lavinia, the heiress to the Duquet empire in particular), but as in Proulx's earlier novel Accordion Crimes, most of their lives come to premature ends.For such a long book, this is surprisingly enjoyable, in fact it is among the best new American novels I have read in the last few years.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Epic.
Harsh.
Fascinating.
And full of trees. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I listened to this book and perhaps that was not the best choice. I presume the printed version would have included a family tree which would have been helpful. This is a multi-generational family saga about the descendents of two indentured French servants who come to the New World in 1693. Their many children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren etc. have stories to tell but some times I forgot who was a child of whom or which generation a certain person belonged to. A family tree would have helped a lot.Charles Duquet and Rene Sel came to New France from Paris as indentured servants. They went to work for a man who was clearing land for a farm and so learned the craft of logging. Their stories diverged almost immediately. Charles Duquet ran away and got work in the fur trade eventually amassing quite a fortune. Rene Sel stayed with the master and eventually married his Micmac country wife, starting a family of mixed Indian and European heritage. The Sels stayed true to their aboriginal roots and barely eked out an existence. Charles Duquet started up a timber business in Maine after marrying a rich Dutch heiress and Anglicizing his name to Duke. His children grow the Duke and Sons family business by clear-cutting New England forests and expanding to other states. The daughter of one of the sons marries a Sel descendent, thus bringing the two families back together. The Sels are never acknowledged as descendants of Charles Duquet although their claim to his estate is as valid (or possibly more valid) than the children with the Duke name. As years of timber cutting take their toll on the environment some of the descendants on both sides start to have second thoughts about the practice. Is it too late to undo the damage done?This book may be a little too preachy for some but Proulx obviously feels strongly about the damage to the environment. Her condemnation of the timber industry is wrapped up in a fascinating 300 year history of the New World and peopled with some very interesting characters. I would recommend this book but probably you should read it, not listen to it.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5At times, I felt I was plodding through this very thorough story of a First Nations family and a French family who came to North America. Through marriage their lives intertwined Through the story Proulx’s love for nature and Canada shine through. The novel deserves the accolades it has received, if for no other reason the detail about the lumber industry and the treatment of native peoples. Beginning in the 1600’s the multigenerational story ends in 2013. I love a big thick novel, and although this book held my interest, I didn’t find it as compelling as Michener’s Hawaii, perhaps because Proux is so adept at putting so much detail into a story.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I felt this book was far too long. While I typically enjoy a multi generational story, this just dragged on for too long. It seemed like the author realized it was going on for far too long and then all of a sudden after introducing several new characters (ver briefly) she wrapped it up. And I don't exactly know what happened at the end. I re-read it a few times and just don't get it.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Overly and unnecessarily long, depressing, and disjointed book. Of the dozens of underdeveloped characters, the one that I was most interested in died on page 58, leaving me to slog through 655 more pages. By that time, I couldn't keep track of who was related to whom and I didn't really care. The end was so strange that I wondered if Proulx wrote it first and then built a story around it.
I will save you hours of frustration by telling you that the entire book was about bad people and deforestation. Do yourself a favor and read The Lorax instead. Just as moving and meaningful. Nice pictures too. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One of those great big sprawling family epics that are a delight to dig into and lose oneself in for a while. A fine read.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I found this book full of sanctimonious drivel, where the white man and Indians wise sages. Gets tiring after 600 pages especially when the writing is tepid.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Barkskins is one of those sprawling sagas (the print version is 756 pages!) that perhaps sprawls a bit too much for its own good. Or at least for my taste and convenience. I borrowed the kindle version from my library, and just when I got engaged with the story of the Duquets and the Sels, it had to be returned; I couldn't renew it because another reader was waiting for it. So I put another hold on it and had to wait two weeks before plunging back in, and by that time, I had begun to forget who was who. (The book follows the descendants of these two families over 300 years and down several branches.) So if you plan to read this book, just be aware that it is one HUGE door-stopper, so unless you're a speed reader, you'd be better off getting your own copy or waiting until interest dies down before downloading it from your local library.The story begins with two young men, Charles Duquet and René Sel, indentured to a Quebec timber company as cutters. In return for three years of labor, they are promised land of their own--a promise that the crafty Charles realizes will never be made good on. He runs away and eventually strikes it rich, first as an international fur trader and then as owner of a vast timber business. René sticks it out but fares less well: he is forced to wed a much older Mi'kmaw woman and dies a violent death.The story follows Charles, his descendants, and the Sel descendants over time and continents. Charles travels to Holland, where he finds a wife, and to China, where he purveys furs and secures new varieties of wood to bring back for sale on the North American continent. His wealth relies on the unbridled flattening of the land, clearing whole forests without conscience, believing that forests of Quebec and Maine are so vast that they will never be extinguished. (So yes, one theme of the book is ecological--and it gets more heavy-handed as the story moves into the 20th century.) His descendants expand the business into New Zealand and begin to consider the South American rain forest, by this time one of the last true forests remaining on earth. The Sels, on the other hand, suffer from a lack of identity: part white and part Mi'kmaw, they find they don't fit well into either community. The young drift back to the Mi'kmaw (who are becoming fewer in number as they are starved, infected, or outright murdered by whites taking over their land) and into relative poverty. Along the way, the two families intertwine, both in events and in blood, and add a third line, the German Breitsprechers.With so many characters and over so many years, I found it difficult at times to remember who everyone was and how they were connected. One positive aspect is the strong female characters: Mary, René's Mi'kmaw wife, a noted healer; Beatrix, one of the first to unite the two families by marriage; Lavinia, who takes over the lumber business with a ruthlessness worthy of Charles Duquet himself; and Sapranisia Sel, a PhD conservationist determined to save the healing Mi'kmaw plants and to reforest the land before it is too late.As stated above, the novel's main theme, in addition to the fates of two families, is the effect of the rapacious stripping of the North American forests, first in the northwest, then westward into Michigan and beyond. While it is an issue that concerns me, it becomes overly didactic in the last sections of the book as several young Sels and one particular Breitsprecher become dedicated conservationists. There are a lot of technical/scientific details that I found dull and digressive, and it seemed rather a shame that an intriguing family saga evolved into a bully pulpit for forest conservation.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Many names to follow over nearly three centuries, but worth it. Several strong personalities in the two families are front and center. The reader on the CD was phenomenal. He did Dutch, English, French, and German accents that added a lot to the book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Cold Skimming Over a Terrible History
The implied narrator of Annie Proulx's Barkskins speaks like a cold god who takes a terrible joy in abruptly killing off her children. On the one hand, this might be intentional, a way for Proulx to express her cold anger for the destruction of nature and the world if trees by rapacious and greedy hunans. On the othervhand, it seems a weakness in the telling. If the forest is the real protagonist, we never come to feel we care about it or experience it in a way that we can empathize. It is very hard to care for any of the characters since the implied narrator doesn't seem to. Often in Michener, the geography of a place seemed more alive than the people. And that worked. Yet in Michener we often still cared about the human actors, too. That alchemy does not happen in Barkskins, and I am left felling as empty as a barren field of stumps. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm a little late in getting to this book was determined as I loved The Shipping News. This one not as much. It's a family saga spanning about 300 years that began with 2 men emigrating from France to Canada as tree hewers. The men went their separate ways, one marrying a native Indian and the other becoming a well-to-do land baron himself. Their stories are told in alternating sections until at the end there is a connection in the present day. I kept reading because I was interested in the characters but also the history of the logging business and ruination of virgin land in Canada, the US and other countries was fascinating. Proulx's research appeared to be quite in-depth and also gave a focus to reforestation and climate change, etc.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5“...the newcomers did not care to understand the strange new country beyond taking whatever turned a profit. They knew only what they knew. The forest was there for them.”Annie Proulx had not released a novel, since The Shipping News. That was 14 years ago! Well, she delivers quite a chunkster here: A 700 page, multigenerational family saga, that focuses on two Frenchman and their descendants, spanning three hundred years. It mostly deals with the timber trade and begins in the deep wilderness of Canada and radiates from there and it even touches down in New Zealand and China.This book takes some patience, but the author's passion and knowledge of the subject, keeps the reader turning pages. There is also a strong environmental theme, running throughout, as we witness the plunder of our forests and other natural resources. This epic novel may not have hit the highs it intended but it is still a good and worthy read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Absolutely a great book. Love this author and loved this work of historical fiction. A family saga but also a history of the forest industry. Another book with a warning of how we don’t listen to our own detriment. This book covers a time period of 1693 to the present time and is global but primarily looks at the Canadian/American forests.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Overall, I enjoyed this book, but not as much as I've enjoyed others by Annie Proulx (The Shipping News; Brokeback Mountain). The book is well written and really provides a sense of life in early North America, but I think Ms. Proulx tried to do too much in one novel. The character development often suffered...and to a lesser extent, so did the plot. Like many others LTers, I think this would have worked better as a trilogy....I'm thinking of Ken Follet's Century Trilogy as a comparison. One of the things that did come through very well (in addition to the environmental message) was the difficulty many Aboriginal people have in straddling two cultures. Some of Ms. Proulx's metis characters embraced their heritage; others tried to ignore it. All encountered challenges.The ending of the book was a disappointment...the character written about in the last chapter was a minor one and seemed like a bad choice to cap off 700+ pages. I would have preferred the story to end with Jeanne and Felix...possibly the end of a dynasty, possibly a new hope.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'm not going to spend anytime trying to summarize any of the complexities of this novel. Figuring it out for yourself is a large part of why this novel is so good! If you've read any of Proulx's other works you will easily recognize her style in her marvelous passing descriptions, the twisting connections between characters, and the gruesome ends she tends to favor. If you haven't read any of her other works... this is a fantastic start to a Proulx binge.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sprawling novel of two indentured servants of a Frenchman in "New France" in the 16th century and the generations of descendants spawned from these two men up until nearly present-day [2013], taking us all over the world. Main theme of the book is forests and logging, how the forests are denuded through greed, then finally forest management and replanting take hold. The two families lives are entwined -- one becomes owners of a lumber and logging company, the other, simple loggers--some of Indian descent.There was too much small detail through the lives of these people, but I appreciated the author's later emphasis on preserving our natural resource. I wish the author had placed the family trees--complicated as they were in the FRONT of the book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Despite forewarning of heavy going,I found this an easy,entertaining read. Not so full of angst as her short stories and very like James Michener/ConradRichter. The ending is a bit sappy. She should lose the current generation . I expect most of us baby boomers feel like that. BAD AMERICANS for ravaging your natural resources and you are still at it.!
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5One of the very few books I didn't bother to finish.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Barkskins by Annie Proulx begins with the story of two broke Frenchmen , Rene Sel and Charles Duquet who come to Canada in the late 1600's as indentured servants, working for three years to earn their piece of land. Proulx then proceeds to track these two families for hundreds of years, while at the same time providing the reader with a rich background on the logging industry and the fall of the native Mi'kmaw tribe. This is an ambitious project and takes some dedication for the reader to track out the expanse of characters. Family trees for each of the characters help to some degree, but I would almost recommend to others to not worry so much about connecting them all, just let the story flow. Certain characters will stand out as the tale unfolds. In structure, this reminded me of a Michener novel where the characters are used to provide context for the historical events and to provide insight into the evolution of an area. Highly recommend to a dedicated reader. I admire the author's writing and learned quite a bit reading this wonderful novel.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In her sprawling novel Barkskins, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx tells the story of the destruction of the great forests of North America and beyond, from the late 17th century to the present. The novel follows the descendants of two Frenchmen, Charles Duquet and René Sel, who immigrate to Canada to become woodcutters (barkskins) in the 1690’s. Duquet founds a timber company with ties around the world, while Sel marries a Mi’kmaw woman, whose descendants are torn between European and Indian values and life ways. In unforeseen ways, these 2 families intertwine over the years, and both entwine with the fate of the forests, from the eastern seaboard of North America to the kauri forests of New Zealand, and the Amazon jungles. Proulx writes beautifully of the mystery of nature, as in this passage: “The moon was a slice of white radish, the shadows of incomparable blackness. The shapes of trees fell sharply on the snow, of blackness so profound they seemed gashes into the underworld” (23). With a sense of voraciousness, the newcomers hew away at this woodland world, believing it to be limitless; and believing in the civilizing good of clearing the land for farms and settlements. Trees are hacked, sliced, ground, burned and floated, and the clearing moves ever on to new regions and new species. Only much later do some begin to talk about reseeding and replacing what has been lost.Just as the trees are cut, so the human characters are cut down by an amazing array of accidents, illnesses, and catastrophes. And faster than the trees, they regenerate and give birth to the next generation. While it can be challenging to keep up with the many generations and relatives in the two families, a number of characters stand out: Charles Duquet himself (who changes his name to Duke), an ambitious and not very likeable man who is successful nevertheless. His descendant Lavinia Duke, a pioneering woman in the lumber industry, who meets her soul mate in Dieter Breitsprecher, an early proponent of reseeding and replanting. Outger Duke, a scientific enthusiast who abandons his half-Indian daughter, Beatrix, to return to Europe. Beatrix, wanting to understand her Native American roots, weds one of the Mi’kmaw Sels, and while at first they seem happy, neither finds in the other the wholeness they are looking for. A counterpoint of greed and generosity, dissatisfaction and hope runs through the novel, as many characters seem broken by their own histories and their struggles with nature. The novel ends with a new generation hoping to turn the tide of global warming. Sapatisia Sel, a descendant of both families, is aware of the coming dangers that we all face. “’A great crisis is just ahead,’ said one scientist”--in reference to the melting of the Greenland ice. “Sapatisia Sel thought he meant that they had been looking at human extinction. She wanted to cry out, ‘The forests, the trees, they can change everything!’ but her voice froze in her throat” (712).
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Beautifully written, great characters.Saga over many years of two main families and their descendents.It is such a pleasure to open the pages of a novel as well written as this. There are other, fun, novels to read but when I find one like this it is a rarity and I am thrilled.If you've read Ken Follett novels and liked them, you will probably like this book too.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An epic, Micheneresque multi-generational tale of two families and the great boreal forests of North America. The ending felt forced and abrupt, but after 700 pages I'm sure it was difficult to figure out how to stop. The interview that came along with the Indiespensable version noted that she had to cut more than 200 pages from her final draft, and unfortunately that probably contributed to the so-so finish.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I had vowed never again to read Proulx because she's so depressing. The trick to reading her is never to expect anything good to happen to anyone, so if someone actually manages to scrape a small particle of joy from life you won't be disappointed when it's snatched away. This time Mother Earth even has to suffer, since the book is about generations of a logging family. It's 700 pages long but worth the investment.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Long and sweeping, Barkskins begins in New France, when 2 French indentured servants—Charles Duquet and Rene Sel—arrive at their place of employment. It's 1693, they are deep in the woods, both illiterate, and there is no oversight to their treatment. Duquet runs and disappears. Sel stays, unafraid of hard physical labor, and is forced to marry his contract-holder's Miqmaq servant.And the next 700 pages trace their descendants' lives and fortunes, ups and downs, in Canada and the US and around the world.Excellent.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Proulx has such a welcoming writing style. Her characters come immediately to life. This novel is a sad story of loss: loss of the forest, loss of identity but not loss of some hope. I was struck at how quickly death comes to both the trees and the characters.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was very long, as I may have mentioned once or twice...A rambling historical novel sweeping from French 18th century settlement to Eco warriors trying to understand forest history today. My favourite bits were the surreal deaths Proulx conjures up for her characters (which she apparently took from history). With so many people to account for, these range from the first ancestor in Canada hit on the head in the forest by unknown persons to awful accidents in the logging trade (lots of these: if I've ever considered it, I really wouldn't now). It's got a really strong message about the disaster humans have been to our woodlands: I found myself convinced rather than annoyed by her unabashed advocacy for the diverity of forests.
Book preview
Barkskins - Annie Proulx
I
forêt, hache, famille
1693–1716
1
Trépagny
In twilight they passed bloody Tadoussac, Kébec and Trois-Rivières and near dawn moored at a remote riverbank settlement. René Sel, stiff black hair, slanted eyes, yeux bridés—in ancient times invading Huns had been at his people—heard someone say Wobik.
Mosquitoes covered their hands and necks like fur. A man with yellow eyebrows pointed them at a rain-dark house. Mud, rain, biting insects and the odor of willows made the first impression of New France. The second impression was of dark vast forest, inimical wilderness.
The newcomers, standing in the rain waiting to be called to make their marks in a great ledger, saw the farmers clumped under a sheltering spruce. The farmers stared at them and exchanged comments.
At his turn René made not only an X but the letter R—marred by a spatter of ink from the quill—a letter which he had learned in childhood from the old priest who said it was the beginning of René, his name. But the priest had died of winter starvation before he could teach him the succeeding letters.
Yellow Eyebrows regarded the R. Quite the learned fellow, eh?
he said. He bawled out Monsieur Claude Trépagny!
and René’s new master, a shambling, muscular man, beckoned him forward. He carried a heavy stick like a cudgel. Drops of rain caught in the wool of his knitted cap. Thick brows couldn’t shadow his glaring eyes, the whites so white and flashing they falsely indicated a vivacious nature. We must wait a little,
he said to René.
The damp sky sagged downward. They waited. Yellow Eyebrows, the deputy whom his new master called Monsieur Bouchard, again bawled Monsieur Trépagny!
who this time fetched a familiar; Charles Duquet, a scrawny engagé from the ship, a weakling from the Paris slums who during the voyage often folded up in a corner like a broken stick. So, thought René, Monsieur Trépagny had taken two servants. Perhaps he was wealthy, although his sodden droguet cloak was tattered.
Monsieur Trépagny tramped up the muddy path toward a line of black mist. He did not so much walk as hurl himself along on his varied legs, one limber, one stiff. He said Allons-y.
They plunged into the gloomy country, a dense hardwood forest broken by stands of pine. René did not dare ask what services he would be performing. After years of manly labor chopping trees in the Morvan highlands he did not want to be a house servant.
In a few hours the sodden leaf mold gave way to pine duff. The air was intensely aromatic. Fallen needles muted their passage, the interlaced branches absorbed their panting breaths. Here grew hugeous trees of a size not seen in the old country for hundreds of years, evergreens taller than cathedrals, cloud-piercing spruce and hemlock. The monstrous deciduous trees stood distant from each other, but overhead their leaf-choked branches merged into a false sky, dark and savage. Achille, his older brother, would have gaped at New France’s trees. Late in the day they passed by a slope filled with shining white trunks. These, said Monsieur Trépagny, were bouleau blanc, and the sauvages made houses and boats from the bark. René did not believe this.
The big trees made him think again of Achille, a flotteur who had spent his brief years plunging in and out of the cold Yonne, guiding logs down the river. He had been powerful, immune to the water’s chill, had worked until a log with a broken limb, sharpened and polished to a spear by the friction of its travels, had pierced his bladder, carrying him along like a gobbet of meat on a spit. René now wore his brother’s underwear and wool trousers and his short coat. He wore Achille’s sabots, though a barefoot life had given him callused feet tough as cow hooves, hardened against French cold. In this new world he would learn the cold was of a different order.
The engagés, dizzy with the narcotic effect of deep forest, stumbled on sprawling spruce roots. Bébites assailed them, minuscule no-see-ums like heated needles, blackflies with a painless bite that dispersed slow toxins, swarms of mosquitoes in such millions that their shrill keening was the sound of the woods. At a bog Monsieur Trépagny told them to smear mud over their exposed skin, especially behind the ears and on the crown of the head. The insects crept through the hair and stabbed the scalp. That, said Monsieur Trépagny, was why he wore a tuque in this damnable country. René thought an iron helmet would be a better choice. Monsieur Trépagny said the sauvages made a protective salve from spruce needle oil and animal fat but he had none. Mud would do. They walked on through the dim woods, climbing over mossy humps, passing under branches drooping like dark funeral swags. The engagés’ legs, weakened by the long ocean voyage, cramped with fatigue.
How big is this forest?
asked Duquet in his whinging treble voice. He was scarcely larger than a child.
It is the forest of the world. It is infinite. It twists around as a snake swallows its own tail and has no end and no beginning. No one has ever seen its farthest dimension.
Monsieur Trépagny stopped. With his stick he smashed out dry spruce twigs at the base of a tree. From beneath his cloak he took a fire bundle and made a small blaze. They crouched around it, stretching out their purple hands. He unfolded a cloth wrapping revealing a piece of moose meat, cut pieces for each of them. Famished, René, who had only hoped for bread, bit and tore at the meat. The grey mosquitoes hummed at his ears. Duquet looked out from puffed slits and, unable to chew, he sucked the meat. Beneath Monsieur Trépagny’s generosity they sensed contempt.
They walked on through a chaos of deadfalls, victims of some great windstorm, Monsieur Trépagny following no discernible path but frequently looking upward. René saw he was following cut marks on certain trees, marks ten feet above the ground. Later he learned someone had blazed the trees in winter striding high above the earth in snowshoes like a kind of weightless wizard.
The forest had many edges, like a lace altarpiece. Its moody darkness eased in the clearings. Unknown plants and curious blossoms caught their eyes, funereal spruce and hemlock, the bright new-growth puffs at the tips of the pine branches, silvery tossing willow, the mint green of new birch—a place where even the sunlight was green. As they approached one opening they heard an irregular clacking sound like sticks—grey bones tied in a tree, stirred by the wind. Monsieur Trépagny said that the sauvages often hung up the bones of a killed animal after thanking its spirit. He led them around beaver ponds protected by almost impenetrable alder queaches, warning that the narrow pathways were moose runs. They passed through wet country. Hollows brimmed with tea-colored rainwater. The quaking sphagnum, punctuated with pitcher plants, sucked at every step. The young men had never imagined country so wild and wet, so thickly wooded. When an alder branch tore Duquet’s jacket he swore in a low voice. Monsieur Trépagny heard him and said he must never curse a tree, especially the alder, which had medicinal powers. They drank at streams, crossed shallow riffles curved like damascened scimitar blades. Oh, how much longer, muttered Duquet, one hand to the side of his face.
They came again to open forest, where it was easy to stride under the trees. Sauvages burned away the underbrush, said their new master in a disparaging tone. In late afternoon Monsieur Trépagny cried porc-épic!
and suddenly hurled his walking stick. It whirled once and struck the porcupine a blow on the nose. The animal pitched down like a falling star, trailed by blood drops. Monsieur Trépagny built a big fire and when the flames subsided into purple rods suspended the gutted animal over the coals. The burning quills stank, but when he took the carcass off the fire, beneath the blackened crust the meat was good. From his bottomless pockets Monsieur Trépagny drew a bag of salt and gave them each a pinch. The leftover meat he wrapped in a greasy cloth.
The master built up the fire again, rolled into his cloak, lay down under a tree, closed his fiery eyes and slept. René’s legs cramped. The cold, the pines hissing in the wind, wheedling mosquitoes and owl cries kept him awake. He spoke softly to Charles Duquet, who did not answer, and then he was silent. In the night something half-wakened him.
Morning began with fire. Though it was late spring it was colder than cold France. Light crawled into the gloom. Monsieur Trépagny, gnawing on leftover meat, kicked Duquet and bawled Levez-vous!
René was up before Monsieur Trépagny could kick him. He looked at the meat in Monsieur Trépagny’s hand. The man tore off a piece and threw it to him, tore another and threw it to Duquet as one might throw scraps to a dog, then headed out with his tireless, lurching gait, following the cuts high on the trees. The new servants saw only darkness except to their rear, where the abandoned fire winked beguilingly.
The day was cold, but dry. Monsieur Trépagny racked along a dim trail, but by noon the rain returned. They were stuporous with fatigue when they reached snarling water, a black river, yet transparent as dark chert. On the far side they saw a clearing filled with stacks of cordwood and the omnipresent forest pressing in. Smoke rose from a hidden chimney. They could not see the house, only mountains of wood and outbuildings.
Monsieur Trépagny shouted. A woman in a mooseskin tunic painted with curling designs came around the end of the nearest woodpile and called out—Kwe!
—then turned away. René Sel and Charles Duquet exchanged stares. An Indian woman. Une sauvage!
They followed Monsieur Trépagny into the frigid river. René slipped on a round river rock and half-fell, thinking of Achille, of the icy Yonne. Fish veered around them, shot past, so many fish the river seemed made of hard muscle. On the muddy shore they passed a fenced garden plot of weeds. Monsieur Trépagny began to sing: Mari, Mari, dame jolie . . .
The engagés kept silent. Duquet’s mouth was pinched as if the air burned, his eyes swollen almost shut.
Beyond the woodpiles they saw Monsieur Trépagny’s house, their first sight of the timber pièce-sur-pièce style, the steep-hipped roof, the shape of the bell-cast eaves familiar from France. But every part was wood except for three small windows set with expensive French glass. Against the trees they saw a wikuom, which they learned the next day was the sauvage woman’s bark house, where she retreated with her children at night.
Monsieur Trépagny took them to his storehouse. The interior stank of rotting potatoes, marsh hay and cow shit. One end was partitioned off and behind it they heard the breathing of a beast. They saw a black fire pit, a forge. Monsieur Trépagny, enamored of his own voice, continued to sing, made a fire in the pit and left them. Outside his voice receded, Ah! Bonjour donc, franc cavalier . . .
The rain began again. René and Duquet sat in darkness except for the light of the dying fire. There were no windows in the building and when Duquet opened the door to let in light, clouds of savage midges and mosquitoes rushed them. They sat in the near dark. Duquet spoke. He said that he was suffering from mal aux dents—toothache—and would run away at his first chance and return to France. René was silent.
After a time the door opened. The sauvage woman and two children came in, their arms full. The woman said bien, bien,
and gave each of them a beaver robe. She pointed to herself and said Mali,
for like most Mi’kmaqs she found it difficult to pronounce the letter r. René said his name and she repeated it—Lené. The larger child set down a wooden bowl of hot cornmeal. They disappeared. René and Duquet scooped the mush out of the bowl with their fingers. They wrapped themselves in the robes and slept.
• • •
It was not light when Monsieur Trépagny wrenched open the door and shouted in a hard voice, Allons-y!
Behind the partition came the sound of jets of milk hitting the bottom of a wooden bucket. He tossed them pieces of smoked sturgeon and took his steel-bladed ax from the wall, gave them each a short-hafted dulled ax. René’s had a great chip missing from the cutting edge. In the dripping dawn Trépagny led them past a maize garden and into a small clearing. He swung his arm in an arc and in an ironic voice called the cramped space his big clearing—le grand défrichement
—then began to chop at a tree with skillful strokes. He commanded them to do the same. He said today they would cut logs to build their quarters, an enlargement of his domus, so that they might vacate his storehouse as quickly as possible. René swung the short-handled trade tool, felt the jolt of the tree’s resistance, swung again, embarking on his life’s work of clearing the forest of New France. Duquet nibbled at a tree with his hatchet, a yellow discharge leaking from his bitten eyes. They limbed the fallen trees, rolled and dragged them to the edge of the clearing. The branches went aside to be chopped later into cordwood.
The ax was dull. In the time it took René to fell one smallish tree, the master brought down three larger and was at work on a fourth. There must be a way to sharpen an ax with a quarter of the cutting edge gone, he thought. He would refresh its sharpness; with doubts he chose a river cobble and began to grind with circular motions. There was no visible progress and he soon began chopping again. Monsieur Trépagny picked up the useless cobble and threw it into the forest, took the ax from René and flourished it. To sharpen,
he said, "we use sandstone—grès." He pantomimed the sharpening. René wanted to ask where Monsieur Trépagny kept his sharpening stones but the man’s glaring expression kept him quiet.
Monsieur Trépagny twisted his lips at Duquet’s whittle marks. He regarded Duquet’s lopsided face. Open your mouth,
he said, tapped the rotten tooth with the blade of his knife and muttered that he would pull it at the end of the day. Duquet made a negative sound.
At the height of the sun the sauvage woman brought a pot of steaming maize. René had rarely eaten food at midday. With a wood chip Monsieur Trépagny scooped out a glob. In the center of the maize melted a creamy substance. René took some on his wood chip, was overcome by the richness. Ah!
he said and took more. Monsieur Trépagny said tersely that it was cacamos, moose bone marrow. Duquet barely ate even this and leaned against a tree breathing noisily.
At twilight they left the clearing. Monsieur Trépagny clattered through his smithy tools until he found a pair of ironmonger’s pliers. Duquet sat openmouthed on a stump and Monsieur Trépagny seized the tooth with the tool and wrenched. He dropped the yellow fang on the ground. Duquet spat blood and pus, his lower lip split from the weight of the pliers. "Allons-y," said Monsieur Trépagny, moving toward his house. René saw him pick up Duquet’s tooth and put it in his pocket.
The men entered the single room and their masculine stench blended into the human funk of the north woods. The pockmarked Mari noticed René’s nostrils flare at the smell of the house and threw an aromatic juniper branch on the fire. In the hubhub of brats they heard some names—Elphège, Theotiste, Jean-Baptiste—but they all looked the same and so like their Mi’kmaw mother that René forgot them immediately. Mari spoke a patois of mixed Mi’kmaq and terse French with a few Portuguese phrases in a curious rhythm. The children had French names.
She brought them a pot of unsalted stewed goose cooked with wild onions and herbs. The meat fell off the bone though Duquet could manage only a little of the broth. A small dish of coarse salt stood in front of Trépagny and he pinched it up with thumb and two fingers.
"Mari does not cook with sel, the Mi’kmaq say it spoils the food. So always carry your own sel, René Sel, unless you can put your thumb in the victuals and season them with your name—ha-ha. Then came a plate of hot corn cakes. Monsieur Trépagny poured an amber syrup on his cakes and René did the same. The syrup was sweet and smoky, better than honey, and he could not believe it came from a tree, as the master said. Duquet, exhausted by his ordeal, bent his head. Mari went to her cupboard and stirred something. She brought it to Duquet. Monsieur Trépagny said perhaps it was a potion made from green alder catkins, the very alders Duquet had cursed, so then the medicine would not work for him. Mari said,
willow leaf, willow bark good medicine Mali make," and Duquet swallowed it and slept that night.
• • •
Day after day the chopping continued and their hands swelled, blistered, hardened, the rhythm of chopping seized them despite the dull axes. Monsieur Trépagny watched René work.
You’ve held an ax before; you have a woodsman’s skill.
René told him about the Morvan forest where he and Achille had cut trees. But already that life was unmoored and slipping sidewise out of memory.
Ah,
said Monsieur Trépagny. The next morning he took their wretched axes from them and went off, leaving them alone.
• • •
So,
said René to Duquet, what is Monsieur Trépagny, is he a rich man? Or not?
Duquet produced a hard laugh. "I thought that between you and Monsieur Trépagny all the knowledge of the world was conquered. Do you not know that he is the seigneur and we the censitaires?—what some call habitants. He is a seigneur but he wants to be a nobleman in this new country. He apportions us land and for three years we pay him with our labor and certain products such as radishes or turnips from the land he allows us to use."
What land?
"A fine question. Until now we have been working but there has been no mention of land. Monsieur Trépagny is full of malignant cunning. The King could take the seigneurie from him if he knew. Did you really not understand the paper you signed? It was clearly explained in France."
I thought it concerned only a period of servitude. I did not understand about the land. Does that mean we are to be farmers? Landowners?
"Ouais, plowmen and settlers, not landowners but land users, opening the forest, growing turnips. If people in France believed they could own land here outright they would rush in by the thousands. I for one do not wish to be a peasant. I don’t know why you came here but I came to do something. The money is in the fur trade."
I’m no farmer. I’m a woodsman. But I would like to have my own land very much.
And I would like to know why he took my tooth. I saw him.
And I, too, saw this.
There is something evil there. This man has a dark vein in his heart.
• • •
Monsieur Trépagny returned a few hours later with iron axes for them, the familiar straight-hafted La Tène
René had known all his life. They were new and the steel cutting edges were sharp. He had brought good whetstones as well. René felt the power in this ax, its greedy hunger to bite through all that stood in its way, sap spurting, firing out white chips like china shards. With a pointed stone he marked the haft with his initial, R. As he cut, the wildness of the world receded, the vast invisible web of filaments that connected human life to animals, trees to flesh and bones to grass shivered as each tree fell and one by one the web strands snapped.
After weeks of chopping, limbing and bark peeling, of dragging logs to Monsieur Trépagny’s clearing with his two oxen, cutting, notching and mortising the logs as the master directed, lifting them into place, chinking the gaps with river mud, the new building was nearly finished.
"We should be building our own houses on our assigned lands, not constructing a shared lodging next to his ménage," Duquet said, his inflamed eyes winking.
Still they cut trees, piling them in heaps to dry and setting older piles alight. The air was in constant smoke, the smell of New France. The stumpy ground was gouged by oxen’s cloven hooves as though a ballroom of devils had clogged in the mud: the trees fell, their shadows replaced by scalding light, the mosses and ferns below them withered.
Why,
asked René, do you not sell these fine trees to France for ship masts?
Monsieur Trépagny laughed unpleasantly. He loathed René’s foolish questions. Because the idiots prefer Baltic timber. They have no idea what is here. They are inflexible. They neglect the riches of New France, except for furs.
He slapped his leg. Even a hundred years ago de Champlain, who discovered New France, begged them to take advantage of the fine timber, the fish and rich furs, leather and a hundred other valuable things. Did they listen to him? No. Very much no. They let these precious resources waste—except for furs. And there were others with good ideas but the gentlemen in France were not interested. And some of those men with ideas went to the English and the seeds they planted there will bear bloody fruit. The English send thousands to their colonies but France cannot be bothered.
As spring advanced, moist and buggy, each tree sending up a fresh fountain of oxygen, Duquet’s face swelled with another abscess. Monsieur Trépagny extracted this new dental offense and said commandingly that now he would pull them all and Duquet would waste no more time with toothaches. He lunged with the blacksmith’s pliers but Duquet dodged away, shook his head violently, spattering blood, and said something in a low voice. Monsieur Trépagny, putting this second tooth in his pocket, spun around and said in a silky, gentleman’s voice, I’ll have your skull.
Duquet leaned a little forward but did not speak.
Some days later Duquet, still carrying his ax, made an excuse to relieve his bowels and walked into the forest. While he was out of earshot René asked Monsieur Trépagny if he was their seigneur.
And what if I am?
Then, sir, are we—Duquet and I—to have some land to work? Duquet wishes to know.
"In time that will occur, but not until three years have passed, not until the domus is finished, not until my brothers are here, and certainly not until the ground is cleared for a new maize plot. Which is our immediate task, so continue. The land comes at the end of your service." And he drove his ax into a spruce.
Duquet was gone for a long time. Hours passed. Monsieur Trépagny laughed. He said Duquet must be looking for his land. With vindictive relish he described the terrors of being lost in the forest, of drowning in the icy river, being pulled down by wolves, trampled by moose, or snapped in half by creatures with steaming teeth. He named the furious Mi’kmaw spirits of the forest—chepichcaam, hairy kookwes, frost giant chenoo and unseen creatures who felled trees with their jaws. René’s hair bristled and he thought Monsieur Trépagny had fallen too deeply into the world of the savages.
The next day they heard a quavering voice in the distant trees. Monsieur Trépagny, who had been limbing, snapped upright, listened and said it was not one of the Mi’kmaw spirits, but one that had followed the settlers from France, the loup-garou, known to haunt forests. René, who had heard stories of this devil in wolf shape all his life but never seen one, thought it was Duquet beseeching them. When he made to call back Monsieur Trépagny told him to shut his mouth unless he wanted to bring the loup-garou closer. They heard it wailing and calling something that sounded like maman.
Monsieur Trépagny said that to call for its mother like a lost child was a well-known trick of the loup-garou and that they would work no more that day lest the sound of chopping lead the beast to them.
Vite!
Monsieur Trépagny shouted. They ran back to the house.
2
clearings
With Duquet gone—"eaten by the loup-garou," said Monsieur Trépagny with lip-smacking noises—the seigneur became talkative, but told differing versions of his history while he chopped, most of his words lost under the blows of the ax. He had a skilled eye that could see where small trees stood more or less in a row, and these he would notch, then fell the great tree at the end, which obligingly took down all the small trees. He said his people came from the Pyrenees, but another time he placed them in the north, in Lille, nor did he neglect Paris as his source. He described his hatred of villages and their lying, spying, churchy inhabitants. He despised the Jesuits. Monsieur Trépagny said he, his brothers and their uncle Jean came to New France to enter the fur trade, although he himself had better reasons.
Our people in earlier times were badly treated in France. The popish demon church called us heretics and tortured us. They believed they had conquered us. They were wrong. We have held to our beliefs hand, head, heart and body in secret for centuries and here in New France we will grow strong again.
He extolled the new land, said it would surpass Old France in richness and power.
A new world that will become greater than coldhearted old France with its frozen ideas. Someday New France will extend all the way to Florida, all the way to the great river in the west. Frontenac saw this.
René thought of it and agreed, New France was a prize if England kept away. But he did not often think of such things. He saw himself as a dust mote in the wind of life, going where the drafts of that great force carried him.
What,
asked Monsieur Trépagny, is the most important thing? After God, of course.
René wanted to say land, he wanted to say seeds, he wanted to say stolen teeth. He didn’t say anything.
Blood!
said Monsieur Trépagny. Your family. Your blood people.
They are all dead,
said René, but Monsieur Trépagny ignored him and continued his history. He and his brothers, he said, went first up the mysterious Saguenay River "to barter with the Hurons for furs, and later with the Odaawa, building up trust, but we avoided the Iroquois, who love the English and who, from childhood, practice testing themselves against horrible tortures. They enjoy inflicting pain on others. The voyageurs’ life is a good life for my brothers, who still ply the rivers. For me, a very disagreeable way.
Now,
he said, the Iroquois are less terrible than in former times. But all Indians were mad for copper kettles, the bigger the better, so large they could not be easily moved, and the possession of a kettle changed their wandering ways. Once they had that copper or iron kettle no longer did they roam the forests and rivers so vigorously. Villages grew up around the kettles. All very well, but someone had to carry those monstrous vessels to them, someone had to toil and haul them up dangerous portage routes.
He pointed silently at his breast. This was below my station in life.
And he smote his tree.
The fur trade moved north and west,
he said to the tree as he told of his disenchantment. The portages. Six, eight miles of rocks with two fur packs the weight of a cow, then back to the canoe and more packs or one of the cursed kettles. Finally, the canoe. You would not believe the enormous loads some of those men carried. One is said to have carried five hundredweight each trip from early morning until darkness.
Carrying one of the detested kettles, said Trépagny, his right knee gave way. The injury plagued him still.
"However! The fur company, with the rights the King assigned them, made me a seigneur and charged me to gather habitants and populate New France. This is the beginning of a great new city in the wilderness."
René asked a question that had bothered him since the first trek through the woods.
Why do we cut the forest when there are so many fine clearings? Why wouldn’t a man build his house in a clearing, one of those meadows that we passed when we walked here? Would it not be easier?
But Monsieur Trépagny was scandalized. Easier? Yes, easier, but we are here to clear the forest, to subdue this evil wilderness.
He was silent for a minute, thinking, then started in again. "Moreover, here in New France there is a special way of apportioning property. Strips of land that run from a river to the forest give each settler fertile farm soil, high ground safe from floods, and forest trees for timber, fuel and—mushrooms! It is an equitable arrangement not possible with clearings taken up willy-nilly—bon gré mal gré."
René hoped this was the end of the lecture but the man went on. Men must change this land in order to live in it. In olden times men lived like beasts. In those ancient days men had claws and long teeth, nor could they speak but only growled.
He made a sound to show how they growled.
René, chopping trees, felt not the act but the pure motion, the raised ax, the gathering tension in arms and shoulders, buttocks and thighs, the hips pivoting, knees loose and flexed, and then the swing downward as abstract as the shadow of a stone, a kind of forest dance. He had bound a rock to the poll with babiche to counterbalance the heavy bit. It increased the accuracy of each stroke.
Monsieur Trépagny launched into a droning sermon on the necessity, the duty of removing the trees, of opening land not just for oneself but for posterity, for what this place would become. Someday,
Monsieur Trépagny said, pointing into the gloom, someday men will grow cabbages here. To be a man is to clear the forest. I don’t see the trees,
he said. I see the cabbages. I see the vineyards.
Monsieur Trépagny said his uncle Jean Trépagny, dit Chamailleur for his disputatious nature—Chama for short—would take Duquet’s place. He was old but strong, stronger than Duquet. He would arrive soon. Monsieur Trépagny’s brothers would also come. Eventually. And he said the time for felling trees was now over. The bébites were at their worst, the wet heat dangerous, the trees too full of sap. Indeed, the hellish swarms of biting insects were with them day and night.
Winter. Winter is the correct time to cut the forest. Today is the time for removing stumps and burning.
It was also the time, he added, for René to begin to fulfill his other duties.
For three days a week your labor is mine. As part of your work,
said Monsieur Trépagny, you are to supply my table with fish.
The more immediate work involved preparing the gardens for Mari. The oxen, Roi and Reine, pulled Monsieur Trépagny’s old plow sullenly. A savage fly with a green head battened on their blood. Monsieur Trépagny smeared the animals with river clay, which hardened into dusty clots but could do nothing about the clustering gnats. But Mari, the Indian woman, steeped tamarack bark in spring water and twice daily sluiced their burning eyes. In the long afternoons, with many sighs, she planted the despised garden. One day that summer she sent her two young sons to a place called Odanak, where remnants of her people had fled.
Goose catch learn them. Many traps learn. Good mens there hunting. Here only garden, cut tree learn.
Monsieur Trépagny said acidly that what they would learn would be rebellion against the settlers and warfare.
• • •
Mindful of his fishing duties René went to the river. Monsieur Trépagny had given him a knife, fishhooks, a waxed linen line and a large basket for the fish. In the river fish were large and angry and several times the linen line parted and he lost a precious hook. But Mari was scornful. Small fish,
she said. Good fisherman not Lené. My people make weirs, catch many many. Big many.
To divert her irritation he pointed at a stinging nettle in the garden. We have those in France,
he said.
"Yes. Bad plant grow where step whiteman people—those ‘Who is it Coming’—Wenuj."
Mari asked him to leave the fish intact—she would clean them herself. She buried the entrails in the garden and when René asked her if that was the Indian way she gave him a look and said it was a common practice for all fools who grew gardens instead of gathering the riches of the country.
Eels!
she said. Eels catch. Eels liking us. We river people.
She wove three eel traps for him and gave him fish scraps for bait, went with him to the river and showed him likely places to try. Almost every day thereafter he brought her fat eels. She said the Mi’kmaq had many ways to catch eels and that the traps were best for him. When her sons came back from the Abenaki village of Odanak they could show him other ways.
• • •
In early July the pine trees loosed billows of pollen, yellow plumes like citrine smoke drifting through the forest, mixing with the smoke from burning trees. One morning an old man, his back bent beneath a bundle, his glaring eyes roving left and right, came ricketing out of the pollen clouds from the west trail, which led, as far as René knew, to the end of the world. Above the little mouth stretched a grey mustache like a bit of sheep’s wool caught on a twig. The eyes were like Monsieur Trépagny’s eyes, black and white and rolling. Chamailleur looked at René, who was preparing to go fishing, and started in at once.
"Salaud! You bastard! Why are you not working?"
I am. It is part of my duty to supply the house with fish for the table.
What! With a string and a hook? You must use a net. Have the woman make a net. Or a basket trap. Or you must use a spear. Those are the best ways.
For me the line and hook are best.
"Stupid and obstinate!—oui, stupide et obstiné! I know what is best and you do not. It is good I came. I can see you need correction. My nephew is too easy."
René continued stubbornly with his hooks and twisted linen line. But he thought about nets. A net might be better, for the fish were so thick in the river he might get several large ones at the same time. As for Mari’s insufferable speechifying on the ways the Mi’kmaq built different kinds of weirs, how they hunted esturgeon at night with blazing torches and spears—he ignored all she said. He did use the eel traps she had made, excusing himself on the ground that eels were not fish.
Searching for land to claim when his servitude ended, he discovered Monsieur Trépagny’s secret. He had walked far upstream. Recent rains had enlarged the river to a bounding roar over its thousands of rocks. He thought it might be best to choose land not too close to the river, but something with a spring or modest stream. He made his way through an old deadfall where in between the fallen trees millions of saplings grew, as close together as broom straws. Twice he heard a great crashing and saw a swipe of black fur disappear into the underbrush. In early afternoon he came onto a wide but faint trail trending east-west and wondered if it might connect to Monsieur Trépagny’s clearing to the east. Instead, with the afternoon before him, he turned west. He saw traces of old ruts that could only have been made by a cart. It was not an Indian trail. Now he was curious.
In midafternoon the trail divided. He followed the wagon ruts. The way became markedly different in character than the usual forest path. Trees had been carefully cleared to create the effect of an allée, the ground thinly spread with thousands of broken white shells. He saw this allée ran straight, a dark tunnel of trees with a pointed cone of light at the end. He had seen these passageways in France leading to the grand houses of nobles, although he had never ventured into one. And here, in the forests of New France, was the blackest, harshest allée of the world, the trees like cruel iron brushes, white shells cracked by deer hooves. The end of the allée seemed filled with light, a void at the limit of the tilting earth.
A massive pale thing loomed up, a whitewashed stone house, almost a château, that might have been carried on the sea winds from France and dropped in place. René knew that this was Monsieur Trépagny’s domus, the center of his secret world. There were three huge chimneys. The windows were of glass, the roof of fine blue slate, and a slate walkway curved around the building, leading to a fenced enclosure. The fence was tall, formed of ornate metal rods. Everything except the stone had come from France, he knew it. It must have cost a fortune, two fortunes, a king’s ransom. It was the proof of the seigneur’s madness, his mind clotted with old heretic ideas of clan and domus, himself the king of an imaginary world.
Disturbed, René cut back to the main trail and followed it east. Dusk was already seeping in. Night came quickly in the forest, even in the long days. As he had guessed, the trail ended in Monsieur Trépagny’s clearing. He went straight to the cabin he now shared with Chama, who was rolled up in Duquet’s old beaver robe, snoring and mumbling.
• • •
The summer months went on. Chama, bossy and cursing, decided where they would cut. They cleared trees, dragging stumps into line to form a bristled root fence. René fished for the table, listened to Mari tell Mi’kmaw stories to Elphège, Theotiste and Jean-Baptiste about beaver bone soup and rainbow clothes and the tiny wigguladumooch, and as he absorbed that lore he watched Monsieur Trépagny and wondered about his secret house, which later he learned the seigneur had named Le Triomphe. He had the coveted particule and could call himself Claude Trépagny du Triomphe.
The heat of summer disappeared abruptly. Overnight a wedge of cold air brought a new scent—the smell of ice, of animal hair, of burning forest and the blood of the hunted.
3
Renardette
Violent maples flared against the black spruce. Rivers of birds on their great autumnal journeys filled the skies—Hudsonian godwits, whole nations of hawks, countless black warblers—paruline rayée—looking like tiny men with their black berets, chalky faces and dark mustache streaks, cranes, longspurs, goldeneyes, loons, sparrows, flycatchers, warblers, geese. The first ice storm came one night in October. Then the world pressed flat, snow hissing in the spruce needles, the sun dimmed by a grisaille wash. The forest clenched into itself as though inhaling a breath.
Mari’s sons Elphège and Theotiste returned from Odanak carrying traps and snares, whistles and calls to lure game. Mari was intensely interested in these objects, but Monsieur Trépagny called them rubbish and threw Theotiste’s beaver funnel trap into the fireplace. René watched the boy’s face harden, watched how he kept his eyes lowered, not looking at Monsieur Trépagny. For a moment he saw in Theotiste the cruel Indian.
December brought stone-silent days though a fresh odor came from the heavy sky, the smell of cold purity that was the essence of the boreal forest. So ended René’s first year in the New World.
• • •
Snow heaped in great drifts smothered the trees so thickly they released avalanches when the wind rose. René learned he had never before in his life experienced extreme cold nor seen the true color of blackness. A burst of ferocious cold screwed down from the circumpolar ice. He woke in darkness to the sound of exploding trees, opened the door against a wall of palpable chill, and his first breath bent him in a spasm of coughing. Jerking with cold he managed to light his candle and, as he knelt to remake the fire, he saw minute snow crystals falling from his exhaled breath.
At breakfast Monsieur Trépagny said it was too cold to cut trees. On such a day frozen ax blades shatter and one burns the lungs. Soon you cough blood. Then you die. It will be warmer in a few days.
When René mentioned hearing trees explode, the seigneur said that in such intense cold even rocks could not bear it and burst asunder. Folding gelid moose bone marrow into a piece of bread he said, One winter, after such a cold attack, I came upon four deer frozen upright in the forest.
Ah, ah,
said Chama, one time in the north when the weather was warm and pleasant for ten days, then, in a single breath, a wind of immeasurable cold descended like an ax and the tossing waves in the river instantly froze into cones of ice. We prayed we would not do likewise.
It was during this cold period that Mari’s youngest child, Jean-Baptiste, who from infancy had suffered a constant little cough, became seriously ill; the cough deepened into a basso roar. The child lay exhausted and panting.
• • •
The moon was a slice of white radish, the shadows of incomparable blackness. The shapes of trees fell sharply on the snow, of blackness so profound they seemed gashes into the underworld. The days were short and the setting sun was snarled in rags of flying storm cloud. The snow turned lurid, hurling away like cast blood. The dark ocean of conifers swallowed the afterglow. René was frightened by the intensity of the cold even in the weak sunlight, and by Jean-Baptiste’s sterterous wheezes coming from his pallet near the fire, his weakening calls to Mari and finally the everlasting silence. Monsieur Trépagny said coldly, All must pay the debt of nature.
The bitter arctic plunge held for a week, then softened to a bright stillness. Mari carried the little body to the mission in Wobik for safekeeping until spring burial. Men went into the forest again. They crossed the frozen river. René learned to walk on snowshoes into the chill world. Tree cutting was easier, and with endless wood supplies they kept a constant fire near the work. Elphège, who had grown taller at Odanak and could help with hauling branches, worked beside him.
So,
said René, you have learned many hunting skills at that place?
"Oui. Many ways to catch every animal. All different each season. You see over there? He pointed west into the woods where they had not yet begun to cut.
That heap of snow?"
Yes,
said René.
What do you observe?
Ah. I observe a heap of snow.
If you go close to it you will see more.
They walked together toward the mound. Elphège pointed to a small hole near the top. A feathery rime surrounded it.
You see? Frozen breath of a bear.
He explained in great detail the ways the bear could be killed and extracted from its den. He continued to talk of ways to lure geese into a deep ditch so they could not open their wings and fly away, explained how to read the age of a moose track, to know the animal’s sex, its size and even its condition. René was astonished at the boy’s knowledge. He was an Indian hunter, and he was, as Trépagny had prophesied, well versed in trickery and deceit.
• • •
René’s free days exploring the forest gave him pleasure. Sometimes he went back to the deadfall region near the west trail, where the snow was mounded in fantastic heaps. He did not go near Monsieur Trépagny’s elaborate house.
A few days after Mari returned from the mission, Monsieur Bouchard, who, in addition to his duties as government deputy, was captain of the militia, came up from the river, moving easily on snowshoes.
What brings you here, Captain Bouchard? It’s a long way,
said Monsieur Trépagny. Is there a corvée or a militia mustering? Are the Iroquois advancing?
On the ship, a letter for you from France. It looked pressing important, red wax seals, a coat of arms. So I bring it to you.
They went up to the house. The river is a shorter road by half than through the forest,
said Monsieur Bouchard as they climbed the slope to the house. I wonder you don’t use your canoe in the pleasant weather.
Fighting the current is more arduous than walking.
Monsieur Trépagny examined the letter, his sallow skin suddenly scarlet, and put it unopened on the shelf near the door. The men sat at the table drinking hot water with a little whiskey in it.
We have a sad story in Wobik,
said Monsieur Bouchard. François Poignet—do you know him?
By sight only. Tall and with a cast in one eye? A farmer.
The same, but a good man. He went into the forest on his land during the recent cold to continue clearing. His wife died in childbed the summer past and their only living child is a girl of ten, Léonardette. The unfortunate father’s ax glanced off the frozen tree as off a block of granite and cut his left leg to the bone.
Zut,
said Monsieur Trépagny.
He struggled to get back to his house. The blood trail marked his effort. Perhaps he called out. If so, no one heard him. He exsanguinated and froze. He was lying on his bier of frozen blood, more frozen than the ax, when we found him.
It is a hard country,
said Monsieur Trépagny.
In addition to bringing you that letter I came to ask if you would take the girl into your household—she is young but strong. You know girls are valuable in this womanless land.
He winked.
Ah,
said Monsieur Trépagny. Now I see why you made such a long trip. Why does not someone in Wobik take this girl? Why not Père Perreault? Why me? What is wrong with the child?
Monsieur Bouchard lifted his eyes to the smoky ceiling and rolled his head a little.
It’s true that she is not perfect in form.
There was a long silence.
In what way is she not perfect in form?
"Well, in form she is perfect enough, but she has a birthmark—tache de vin—on her neck."
"And what does the tache de vin signify that it repels the citizens of Wobik and the holy priest?"
It is, in fact, oh ah
—Monsieur Bouchard was sweating with the heat of the fire and the discomfort of his errand—it is a perfect little image of a demon—with horns. I thought that as your religious beliefs . . .
And his voice trailed off. He looked yearningly at the door.
My religious beliefs? You think I would welcome a girl with the mark of the Evil One on her neck?
It is said—it is said you have a—respect—not for God but for the devil.
"I do not. Sir, I abhor the demon. You are misinformed. I believe that your Roman Catholic ‘God’ is the Devil, the Demiurge. You have only to read in the Old Testament to see his cruelty. To me that is the Demon. It is you who worship the devil." His squinted eyes caught the light as splinters of ice.
Perhaps I was misinformed, but my duty is to see the girl in someone’s care. The people in the village—
Calling on public opinion was the last card in his hand.
No, don’t speak to me of people in villages.
Yes, as that may be, but people in the village have seen certain things. For example, they say they have seen you in the flying canoe with the devil and his impious boatmen, plying the clouds and laughing cruelly.
He got it out in a tumble.
What rubbish!
said Monsieur Trépagny. Who was this sharp-eyed person—witch, I should say—who sees such false wonders?
He had moved closer to the deputy.
I am not at liberty to name persons,
came the smug response of one who protects the innocent.
Have a care, Monsieur Bouchard.
The old deputy put up his chin. "You have a care, Monsieur Claude Trépagny du Triomphe. I have little interest in flying canoes and devil pacts. Nor in you. I want only to find a place for the girl. He added slyly,
She is skilled in brewing excellent beer. She learned well from her mother."
Mari brought more hot water to the table and, eyes downcast, said quietly, That girl take me. No like make beer me.
There you go!
cried Monsieur Bouchard. I’ll send her right up. She’s just down by the river.
Two strides and he was out the door, his long cloak whisking after him.
Captain Bouchard! Wait!
bellowed Trépagny at the closing door. He whirled around and struck Mari to her knees, then slammed out with his ax in hand.
The skinny, sad child slowly climbed the snowy hill from the river. She was thin with lank hair, dark circles under her small brown eyes and a half-cringing way of carrying herself as though ducking blows before they had been struck. Her fingers were slender and dexterous. Mari, moving slowly, patted her shoulder twice, put a wooden spoon in her hand and set her to stirring mush. When Monsieur Trépagny came in he pulled her to the doorway to examine the demonic birthmark. He saw a small red triangle the size of a thumbnail on the nape of her neck and at its top two tiny triangles the height of a mosquito.
Hah!
said Monsieur Trépagny. It’s no demon. The stupid town folk have seen only what they wanted to see. The fools. It’s a fox. We shall call you Renardette.
• • •
Despite her cringing manner the girl was a competent brewer. She began by scouring the brew house and the stone brewing jars. She asked for hop seeds and planted them among the stumps. She picked the ripe hops herself and made very good beer. No one drank more of it than Renardette herself. Though René still preferred vin rouge, it had to be imported and was too costly. But if ever the settlers’ apple orchards began to bear they could have cidre. That would be pleasure.
4
guests from the north
During René’s third winter Monsieur Trépagny began to behave erratically. He went off for weeks at a time and when he returned he was rudely commanding, even to Chama.
In early May with snow still on the ground Monsieur Trépagny said he would be gone for a year or perhaps two, as he had pressing business in Kébec and France. He told René that Chama would be in charge of the daily work. He marked out an impossibly large area, more than five arpents (almost five English acres), for them to clear of trees. In France, thought René, the forests were controlled by laws and customs; here there were no forest laws beyond the desires of the seigneur. That Trépagny had the right to order the clearing confounded him and he sensed injustice.
Trépagny slapped his gloves on his thigh and mounted his horse. He gave a last order: Mari, do not neglect the garden.
Mari said nothing but her fingers twitched. René knew she disliked gardening, considered it French foolishness. In the garden she felt snared. She neglected it at every chance, she and Renardette going to gather medicine plants. She knew the healing virtues of many tree barks. She kept moldy substances in a box to bind onto infected wounds. Some fungi she worked into salves.
Of course,
Monsieur Trépagny had sneered, as though describing a vicious fault, "all the Indians are physicians and apothecaries. They alone know the secret virtues of many plants. Have you never heard how they cured de Champlain’s crew, dying of scorbut, with a broth of hemlock needles? Wait, you will hear it a thousand times."
But now he was gone and Chama pranced around like a rooster. And, like that of a rooster, his wet eye fell on the only hens in sight. In the night René heard him slide stealthily out of his beaver robe and ease out the door, his footsteps squeaking in the stiff snow. In minutes rapid running and the slamming door brought him back.
• • •
More than two years passed before Monsieur Trépagny returned on a fine sorrel stallion. He sprang off with a flourish like the signature of a state minister. He was decked in a pea-green doublet with paned sleeves, silk breeches in darker green and trimmed with knotted ribbons. His massive belt sported three silver buckles and his boots showed crimson heels. The glory was a low-crowned hat with six red-dyed ostrich plumes wreathed around the brim. He smelled of a cloying perfume that made Elphège sneeze out a gob of snot onto the scalloped cuff of the doublet. Monsieur Trépagny knocked him to the ground and kicked him; Mari threw herself over the boy. Monsieur Trépagny gave her a powerful kick in the ribs as well, remounted his sorrel and rode west, no doubt to revel in his secret house, thought René.
At supper the next night Mari served up stewed eels and dried salmon made into a thick fish pudding. Monsieur Trépagny exploded. Eels were savages’ food, he said, and he expected something better as befitted a seigneur. They were witnessing Monsieur Trépagny’s transformation into a gentleman manifested by his new garments and his dislike for eels, which in the past he had always relished. He expressed his growing disdain for the Indians, calling them lazy and ignorant barbarians. He threw a coin on the table in front of Mari and told her that she must pack up and leave with her children the morrow—he was marrying a French lady in a fortnight. The coin would pay her passage east back to her people, where she might eat all the eels in the world. Mari sat quietly, saying nothing, and René supposed she was unfeeling and submissive.
• • •
It was midmorning when they left the house, Mari with her few possessions in a willow basket pack, the children each carrying a bundle. Renardette said to Mari in a low voice that she did not want to go to Wobik, that the people there treated her badly. Mari glanced at Chama, busy sharpening knives but listening attentively.
Here bad stay you. Come you. Safe that mission.
The little group went down the steps to where Monsieur Trépagny stood in the yard watching, legs spraddled like a colossus. Suddenly he turned to René.
What are you gaping at? Go with them! And in Wobik arrange with Philippe Bosse to bring out my trunks on his cart. They are by now surely at the deputy’s house. Be back in five days’ time.
René carried Theotiste across the river, Elphège stumbling behind. Mari, gripping Renardette’s reluctant hand, was the first across, moving as though on a firm path beneath the water, then striding eastward along the dim path to Wobik.
Are your people in Wobik?
René asked her, although everything he had heard indicated otherwise.
No. No Wobik.
She spoke in a low voice.
Then—where?
For a long time she said nothing. When they stopped at noon to make tea she said, Sipekne’katik. River people we. All our life that river, other river. Mi’kma’ki our place. Good rivers. Good food. Eel, fish. Good medicine plant. Better. Here no good.
She handed corn cakes spread with cacamos to the children.
How did you come to Monsieur Trépagny’s house?
he asked, but she did not answer and they walked in silence until they reached Wobik the next noon. Mari stopped at the edge of the settlement near the path to the mission church. Here,
she said. "Confession, mass. Read, write, talk French by Père Perreault." She gave him two corn cakes for his return journey.
"You read? You write?" said René, astonished and jealous. He had seen no evidence of these skills in Mari.
Bientôt,
she said, soon,
and with the silent children she took the path to the mission and the priest’s house. Only Elphège turned to look at him. René’s glance swept the ground and when he saw a Sabot de la Vierge he picked it and pinned it to his shirt with a willow sliver, enjoying the musky perfume.
• • •
He went on to the deputy’s house. A hundred yards away the river glittered and pranced in the sunlight. Two huge canoes were drawn up on the shore and under the spruce trees a group of men and a few Indian women were making camp—fur traders from the pays d’en haut heading for Tadoussac or Kébec. They were a rough-looking lot, great triangles of shoulders, chest, neck and arms balanced on bandy legs, bearded, dark-skinned from smoky fires, their tasseled red hats covering oily hair. One muscular fellow lurching under two heavy packs caught his eye; there was something about him René thought he knew. The man swiveled away and went into the shadow under the trees.
Ah, Monsieur Sel.
Monsieur Bouchard, the deputy, was cordial and smiling, his yellow eyebrows raised in pleasure at seeing the young woodcutter from the forest. René explained that Monsieur Trépagny had renamed Léonardette Renardette because he thought the birthmark resembled a fox face, and he had sent Mari and the children away. He wanted to have his trunks brought out to his house.
Ah, that is what fine fellows do when a moneyed lady with connections comes in sight. Yes, Philippe Bosse can bring his trunks out—for a consideration which I’m sure the elegant Monsieur Trépagny du Triomphe will be happy to pay, now that he is marrying the wealthy Mélissande du Mouton-Noir. I’ll see to it this afternoon so that he may continue to appear as a gentleman. Likely he wants them delivered to his big edifice he calls the ‘manor house’?
He said nothing of that.
As he looked around the room René saw Monsieur Bouchard had a shelf of books with gold letters on the spines. He discerned an R.
Philippe can find him and ask. And you, are you clearing your own land now? Have you built your house? Have you also found someone to marry?
Monsieur Trépagny has not yet granted me land.
René had lost any sense of years.
Indeed?
Monsieur Bouchard took down the big ledger and turned the pages. Well, I believe it is well past the time. You have worked for him five years and four months. He will owe you wages. I will send him a note with Philippe. But have you found land to settle on?
"I have seen several good places west of Monsieur Trépagny, one in an old Indian clearing about a mile from the river but near a small stream that runs all summer and autumn. Another