Barkskins (15 page)

They left the street of shops, heading for a certain eating place. Toppunt had heard the cook came from Bourgogne and was a genius of the kitchen. This inn was in a distant street and the longer they walked the hotter Duquet became until he felt his brains roasting, his shoulders laden with coals. His neck ached with the weight of the wig. The sun glowed as a smelting furnace. They pushed through crowded streets, down alleys that ran at angles. A man carrying a large covered tray on his shoulder came toward them. He brushed past Duquet, who suddenly felt the expensive wig ripped from his head. He spun around in time to see the man with the tray running, and on the tray a ragged child clutching Duquet's new wig. The load was heavy and the man lurched as he ran.

“Au voleur! Au voleur!”
shouted Duquet and Toppunt. A passerby stuck out his leg and the man fell, the child, tray and wig hurtling into the mud. The child scampered away at extraordinary speed but the passerby held down the man. A crowd gathered and pinioned the thief.

“It'll be the galleys for him,” said Toppunt. “He will join the Huguenots.”

Duquet, in an icy rage, retrieved the huge wig that had cost him so much. It looked twice as large as before, quite the armful, as big as a mattress and with clots of mud dangling from its curls; as he shook it he saw it had become entangled with another wig, apparently stolen earlier than his and hidden beneath the cloth.

“It's a good one,” said Toppunt, examining the modish second wig critically. “You can sell it.” But as he examined it more closely he grimaced.

“It's full of lice and nits.” He held it up. “But you could have it fumigated and cleaned. It is a valuable wig.” While they were examining the hairy mass the passerby, still holding the thief and craning his neck to better see the wigs, relaxed his grip a little and the miscreant wrenched loose and ran into the faceless multitude. A chase was hopeless.

Duquet had had enough of wigs for the day, and, carrying his own under his arm, he strode away, Toppunt, carrying the lousy wig, running after him, calling, “Slow, slow.”

By the time they reached the inn they could laugh at the adventure. Duquet said they should return to the wigmaker and see what he would give for the stranger's wig. It might pay for their dinner. They recklessly ordered dishes with the feeling that someone else would pay—some good French wine. At last, sated and half drunk, they ate a sweet tart, and after that neither could move.

“We need coffee,” said Toppunt. The innkeeper told them of a coffeehouse two streets away. They waddled in that direction, passed it twice before seeing it and went in.

When they were finally restored to mobility and mental clarity they returned to the wigmaker's shop, Toppunt carrying the stolen wig. The man recognized it as one he had made himself for a great gentleman. He said he would return it to his client, but Duquet insisted on a reward, naming a sum that covered the cost of their lavish dinner. Moaning, the wigmaker paid it, protesting that his client would hardly pay twice, even for a stolen and returned wig.

In the street Toppunt said the wigmaker would likely cleanse the wig, hide it away and, when the client came to him telling of the theft, the wigmaker would promise him a new one, as like the old as a pea in the pod resembles its neighbor, and charge an even greater sum (for the verisimilitude) than the wig's first sale.

“In truth,” he said, “I believe the thieves are in the employ of the wigmakers.”

•  •  •

A week later, dressed in his finery and wearing the ivory teeth and stifling wig, Duquet attended a formal return dinner at Captain Verdwijnen's house in Amsterdam. The captain and his wife, Margit, Captains Piet Roos and Jan Goossen, their wives and Piet's two nearly grown daughters, Josina and Cornelia, made up the company. In the entrance hall Duquet noticed the table Captain Verdwijnen had purchased for Margit in Guangzhou.

As Margit looked him over Duquet saw that her right eye was more kindly than the left, which shot out a ray of antipathy. He felt that eye erase his fine clothes, discard the wig, dissolve the ivory teeth and identify him as a scavenging opportunist. He dared not eat anything but soup and gravy as he did not wish to remove his teeth in company. They were inadequate for anything beyond blancmange.

To avoid Madame Verdwijnen's cruel eye, all through the dinner Duquet shot his own glances at young Cornelia. There was a resemblance to Piet and she was passable, though certainly not a beauty. Her eyes were of a blue so pale they seemed white, her nose was broad. She wore a dark brown silk dress with a filmy ruff collar and an embroidered linen cap. Duquet made up his mind that she would be his wife. At the flashing thought of any opposition or denial the inner tiger stirred.

•  •  •

During his time in Amsterdam, at a popular coffeehouse Duquet met a colonial Englishman from Boston, Benton Dred-Peacock, dressed in smart clothes of the best quality but with a face that seemed made from stale bread crusts. Most colonial settlers were of low circumstance; it was obvious Dred-Peacock was a moneyed gentleman. As they talked Duquet learned Dred-Peacock had intimate business dealings with the newly appointed New England royal mast contractor Jonathan Bridger. The man knew very much about the forest business in the colonies, and made it clear that his allegiances lay with the colonists rather than the Crown. And Dred-Peacock recognized in Duquet a man who knew how to get money from turnips if nothing else was at hand. Money was power and Duquet gave off the smell of both. He was one of those men others wished to know, even while they despised him.

Duquet gathered from the conversation the knowledge that many colonials bitterly disliked English rule and the public taxes that went (unfairly, said Dred-Peacock) to support England's reckless wars. Especially did they dislike the restrictive policies of the Royal Board of Trade, which set stringent rules for cutting the dense and dominating forests, rules pressing on amounts and procedures for supplying the Royal Navy with ships' stores—masts, bowsprits and yards, not to mention pitch and tar. The residents were incensed over the Acts of Trade and Navigation, which clamped like vises on colonial trade. And this Bridger fellow was apt to be troublesome about the sale of townships and the cutting of mast trees. But, said Dred-Peacock, “that man is eager to make a name for himself, and I believe he will respond to careful smoothing.” And Dred-Peacock knew the Elisha Cookes, both formidable powers in colonial affairs.

Dred-Peacock, his breath heavy with black rum fumes, whispered to Duquet, his eyes casting about for listening spies; “As Dr. Cooke says, we ought to have the rights to trade with the whole world if we have the enterprise to produce the goods and timber, to grow hemp. But these Acts bind us at every turn.”

Duquet suggested they move to a more private table near the back, and he ordered a flagon of rum. As the evening wore on he learned there were many sly ways the New Englanders evaded those thousand and one strictures, most generally in collusion with colonial officials, especially the sawmill owners. Dred-Peacock leaned closer, thinking an alliance with this brute could be to his purse's advantage. It was all about money.

“Chief among these exigencies is procuring ownership of great white pine tracts by purchasing old township grants. One must cultivate understandings with men who enjoy political influence and connections. I have done so. The enemy is the King's Surveyor, a dotard in London who makes a big fluster examining the licenses and permits of lumbermen. He is cowardly and dare not come to the colonies lest he suffer an accident. He sends his henchmen, the lowest of men.”

“I would know more about acquiring those townships,” said Duquet.

Armed with a dozen new names and Dred-Peacock's promise to meet him on his return, Duquet sailed for Boston, reflecting that the great and important advantage of the colonies over New France was the ice-free ports. The St. Laurent was locked in ice for six or even eight months of the year.

He found a small house in the colonial city and for the next year practiced speaking English and cultivating acquaintances with men who could grant him favors, all introduced by Dred-Peacock. Duquet did not quite trust Dred-Peacock, yet the man was a tolerable woodsman, a grand walker with legs cutting distance as springily as sheep-shearing blades. In the early spring Duquet fell ill with cholera, gradually regaining his health. He planned one more trip to China, and then he would buy up old Maine land claims and paper townships. But first he had to go north.

B
ack in New France Duquet reverted to buckskin and moccasins and set out to find the Trépagny brothers. Everywhere he went there were stump-choked clearings, charcoal kilns and settlers' cabins, for men were cutting maple trees to make charcoal; the English needed it for their glass and gunpowder factories and paid high prices. He could not find Toussaint and Fernand—but that could be explained by the new war. New France, Indians and the English colonies to the south boiled with spies; there were constant ambushes by roving bands of combatants. Duquet was impatient to get the brothers aligned for another season of fur trading. They would dodge the fighting.

Then it was cooler and there was rain in the woods, the smell of leaf mold and mushrooms. The refreshed river hissed. He looked up at a sky that seemed set with rondels of thick glass. He found the brothers tearing out a beaver dam near their old hut on the Rivière des Fourres. Both brothers, muddy and glad to leave the beaver dam for a reunion, were in fair health though Toussaint's beard showed white side streaks and Fernand groaned when he straightened up.

“They call this Queen Anne's War, but it seems the continuance of our old antipathies,” Toussaint said. “I blame the Indian factions. One day a tribe is your enemy. The next you are fighting beside them, or they stand back from the battle and smile, like the Iroquois.”

“I hope you do not think I came back to fight Indians and English,” said Duquet sourly.

“Many do feel an allegiance to New France,” said Toussaint.

“I feel an allegiance to gathering furs.”

Toussaint poured water into the black kettle and when it boiled Duquet showed them somewhat officiously how to make tea. They sipped it, making wry faces. Duquet said they would develop a taste for it, that it was considered a luxury in Europe. He said he wished he had brought coffee for them but it was extremely dear and doubtless they would not like it as it was very bitter. The rum was more welcome. He apologized for the small amount of fur money he gave them, told a tale of pirate capture and the loss of most of his profits. He was anxious to start trading again and would surely make up the poor showing of this venture. Smoothly he asked for their history. The brothers exchanged a long look.

Toussaint said drily that they had experienced coffee in Ville-Marie, nor was Duquet the only one to see the world. They had traveled on the Mississippi the last several years with Pierre LeMoyne, the son of a man in Ville-Marie who had started his New France life as an indentured servant and become rich.

“Some people now see that there should be French forts all across the land.” As Toussaint spoke, Duquet sensed that he was seething with the desire to build forts and fight the English, guessed that they disbelieved his pirate story. But what could they do? Enjoy the rum, that's what.

“We went to find the true mouth of the river.
Sacrebleu!
I swear! Some river—a maze of swamps and black waterways like spiderwebs. LeMoyne explored in a canoe with an Indian and some soldiers. We stayed in the Indian village near the old La Salle fort.”

Fernand picked up his brother's story, spoke rapidly, saying that other Indians had stayed in that village—a dozen of them from a Western Ocean tribe who had come to hunt bison. “For they do not have those beasts in their country. The Western Ocean hunters had packs of furs for trade. They came by those furs trading with the North Indians who live near the world of ice.”

Toussaint opened a small pack and showed eight rich sea otter furs and four arctic fox.

“Ah!” Duquet stroked the sensual otter pelts. He draped one across his knee and slid his fingers into the caressing warmth. His mouth watered.

“They said the North Indians had so many otter pelts they paved the streets of their villages with them. They said the North Indians traveled with the Russians and all got sick.” He stretched out his hand for his otter fur in Duquet's hand and returned it to his pack.

“Did the North Indians with the Russians trade willingly with the Western Ocean Indians?”

Fernand made a deep sound. “At first, yes, then they changed. The Russians were already dead and the North Indians were dying when the Western Ocean Indians came on them. The sick North Indians did not want to trade. The Western Ocean men persuaded them.”

“Some of the persuasion was severe? Even fatal?”

Fernand was fumbling with the second pack, Toussaint clearing his throat and frowning at his brother. But Fernand, always a braggart, said, “It is true. Look at this.”

He withdrew a rolled skin and opened it out. The brilliant gold and black fur dazzled. “A tiger,” he said. “The Russians had it.” He stroked the striped pelt. “It is why the sick North Indians did not want to trade.” Toussaint turned away.

“Where is the head?” asked Duquet. “The head is valuable.”

“The Russians did not have the head. They likely ate it. One must look after oneself in this life, isn't that right?”

“Right,” said Duquet, watching Toussaint pull the tiger skin away from his brother and roll it. They would not give up that skin readily. The old easy partnership was gone. In fact, thought Duquet, his feeling for New France was gone. Late in the night, each rolled up in his bison robe, he heard Toussaint's voice, low and rough, oppressing his brother.