Barkskins (4 page)

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.

V
iolent 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.