Barkskins (60 page)

“Then there is no reason for haste,” said Edward.

“Remember Pennsylvania,” said Cyrus, who had watched the company lose a rich chance.

The meeting lasted longer than any meeting in Duke & Sons' history and continued the next day as they wrangled over the advantages and difficulties of setting up a new headquarters in Detroit, the impossibility of running an expanded company with only family members sitting in Boston. The good weather held and it became a punishment to be shut up in meeting after meeting.

“We will certainly have to hire outsiders,” said Freegrace. “Outsiders! Against Duke and Sons' policy.”

“That is the case,” said Lennart. “And we must start this hiring at once. We need more landlookers. There is too much forest for Breitsprecher and we must get all the experienced men we can. Other timbermen will soon smell the perfume of those Michigan pines. There will be a scramble.”

“And more employees in the office here, and in Detroit to keep track of the land purchases, the maps, the subcontractors, our markets, the shifting tides of lumber prices, boats and transport—everything. Everything. We must build an office building and houses in Detroit as soon as ever we can.”

“Let us not rush ahead so quickly,” moaned Freegrace.

“James,” said Lennart, who somehow during the course of the meeting had moved into a primary position to order the company's affairs, “how soon can you return to Detroit and commence buying up of the lands Breitsprecher surveyed on our exploratory journey?”

“Fairly soon. In ten days perhaps. I have some affairs to set in order and need to make arrangements for certificates of deposit and surety for the payments.”

“I have nightmares of interlopers getting those lands before we do. It is urgent that we buy now. We can always buy on credit—that would hasten acquisition.”

“Duke and Sons have never bought on credit,” said Edward stiffly. “We pay cash and that is why our custom is favored. It is our signature.”

“If we commence buying townships, with such large purchases we may need to proceed with buying on credit,” said Lennart. “The day will come.”

•  •  •

A week later James went west again. In Detroit he took rooms near the government land office. In three days of intense work with the clerk, a cold-syrup sort of man he thought, Duke & Sons owned all the timberlands Breitsprecher had surveyed on their exploratory trip, a hundred thousand acres. He bought three city lots and hired carpenters to begin putting up an office building and three houses. He returned to Boston to await the land patent certificates. Breitsprecher stayed in Michigan surveying, marking sections and whole townships.

“We should buy up the townships sight unseen,” said Lennart. “We know the trees are there. It is not essential to send a landlooker to comb through every acre before purchase.”

Edward and Freegrace recoiled. “What, take a flyer on getting worthless swampland or cliffs and sinkholes? Or nothing but grass or spindly trees?”

“It is not in the nature of these Michigan lands to deviate from pine. It would save a great deal of anxiety if we bought sight unseen straight from the land office map.” Lennart's voice was hoarse with talking. But the two oldest Dukes flamed up with such passion, and Cyrus Hempstead unaccountably sided with them, that he dropped the idea.

•  •  •

In December, Breitsprecher returned. It was a cold day. He went up the cramped stairs of the old Duke building and into the boardroom to make his report. As he heard the first figures Cyrus sucked in his breath. The board foot estimates were so enormous they could barely be grasped.

“It is all standing timber. I saw no sign of other landlookers but I did see a government surveyor and his chainman on the trail. He said there are many such surveyors at work in Michigan Territory now, those in the south doing section work, the men to the north in the timberlands roughing out townships. He said some of the early surveyors were far from expert and because of their inexperience Michigan has two base lines. I do not know how much Mr. James has procured of the timberland that we saw on our first journey. I have heard of connivance and foul play at the land offices, though I think the men in Detroit are reasonably honest.”

Cyrus spoke up. “Mr. James Duke procured most, if not all, of those lands you examined earlier. And now we must acquire these you have just marked for us. We cannot move quickly enough. No reflection on your excellent work, Armenius, but we need more landlookers. If you have any names to put forward this is the time to do it.”

He had no ready names.

As they left the meeting room Lennart drew Cyrus aside and said, “We need you to help James make the purchases. There is another Michigan land office in Monroe, and I think it would be best to use it and allay possible competitors' suspicions that Duke and Sons are taking all of Michigan. We have liquidated some of the New England holdings now and there is money for this. I wish you to think how important it may be to buy on credit if we want to secure large holdings. The immediate investment is small compared to the future income. So far we have only begun. There are many millions of acres of pineland in Michigan, and perhaps contiguous areas to the west and south. You can take the coordinates Breitsprecher has just given us, go to Monroe and start buying. Come with me now and I will give you the bonds. Buy as fast as ever you can.”

•  •  •

Armenius Breitsprecher left the overheated office, walked home enjoying the smell of a coming storm. At his small house Frau Stern welcomed him back with his favorite, a lemon posset. There was a great sack of accumulated mail on the kitchen floor. He swallowed the posset and four roast pigeons and slept for sixteen hours.

The next morning he got at the mail. The Christmas season was at hand and the homeland Breitsprechers flooded their relative with affectionate greetings and presents—cakes and
Blutwurst,
a small keg of best sauerkraut, tins of nuts and candied fruits, and his grandmother Fredda had written out a description of the geese that were to be roasted. The
Blutwurst
delighted him and before he opened the rest of the letters he sent Frau Stern for some good dark bread.

With the plate of sliced
Blutwurst
and bread and a thumb-size blob of Flower of Mustard beside him he read the letters one by one. The
Blutwurst
was gone, the bread gone and only a smear of mustard left by the time he reached the pages from his cousin Dieter Breitsprecher. Dieter had suffered in his childhood—both his parents on a holiday in the Jura had been caught in an unseasonable snowstorm and avalanche. The orphan was brought up by his severe maternal grandmother. Armenius could almost see Dieter before him, tall and with gooseberry eyes. He had studied privately with Heinrich von Cotta in Saxony and now was working as a forester on the estate of Graf Ernst-August von Rotstein. The estate's most distinguished feature, he wrote, was a large forest. Armenius moaned with envy at Dieter's description of his catalog of the forest's insects and how they affected the different species of trees, temperature diaries and rainfall measurements, boundary plantings, a coppice experiment. Yet Armenius had seen enough wild American forest to slightly dampen his enthusiasm for management. How could one possibly control the fantastic complexity of the New World forests?

Several days passed before he could begin to answer his cousin's letter and so filled with discontent were his paragraphs that he crumpled and threw down page after page. Hopeless, hopeless to try to describe the situation in North America, where people spurned the age-old craft of forestry, a craft he knew only partially from books, his father's lectures and his own observations. He had to get Dieter to come and see for himself the Michigan forest, a massive but innocent forest standing complete before the slaughter began. What discussions they would have! He scribbled rapidly and posted the result without rereading it.

•  •  •

An answer came in March. Dieter was making the journey. Armenius worked it out that his cousin was at that moment on the high seas and with fair weather would arrive within two weeks.

•  •  •

With his dog, Hans Carl von Carlowitz, beside him he stood on the wharf staring, as he had for the last half hour, at the docked
Hansa.
Passengers lined the rails, eager to get off. He looked for Dieter's head, which should be among the highest, but did not see him. Nor did he see him in the flood of passengers. He was startled when a hand closed on his shoulder and the familiar voice said,
“Wie geht's, Menius?”

“
Ach.
You startled me. I was looking for you.”

“Yes, I saw you staring. I tipped my hat.
Sehr kalt hier.
”

“It is.
Amerikanischer Frühling. Komm, komm,
we'll be at my house very soon.”

“You have your own house? And is this your
Hund
?” He patted Hans Carl's head.

“
Ja,
this is Hans Carl von Carlowitz, who goes everywhere with me, and as for the house, it was my parents' and I am not often in it as I spend most of my time in the forest making computations of board feet. As I mentioned in my letters.”

“Ideal name. So the observant one is always at your side,
nicht wahr
?”

“
Ja, ja.
Always. And on cold nights—
Ach
, Dieter, I can't say how glad I am you have come, and with time enough for me to show you everything.”

“I have always wanted to see the famous forests of North America, and the Graf, who is a second cousin, though reluctant to see me go, was generous with the time—because of your letter, which I showed him. ‘See everything,' he said, ‘and if you find good timber investments for me write at once.' ”

“Ah, he is just like the Dukes. Just like the Americans.”

“I think not,” said Dieter, laughing, his pronounced Adam's apple rising and falling, his gooseberry eyes trying to see everything at once. “He suffered a great deal from the Peasants' Uprising a few years ago. They reject his control of the forest, the laws, they hate the managed plantations.”

“As soon as you have rested from your voyage we will start for Michigan. But first I will introduce you to the Dukes and Lennart Vogel. We will go to the Duke office tomorrow morning.”

“Dear cousin, while I get warm with some hot spirit and water you will tell me all about the Dukes, their plan to seize the forests of the earth, their fiendish little ways.”

In half an hour the two cousins had finished Frau Stern's boiled pigs' feet and kraut and settled in front of the Franklin stove with their pipes and the port decanter to talk about the Dukes and forestry while the wind shrieked around the corner of the house.

•  •  •

Edward Duke did not take to Dieter Breitsprecher. Later he complained to Freegrace. “Why, he looks like Ichabod Crane, a great thin tall gawk. And how he stares!”

“Yes, but Armenius says he is a forester on a great estate in Germany. He manages a large forest. He might be useful to us.”

“God's sake, how on earth does he ‘manage' a forest?” snorted Edward. “Cut 'em down! That's forest managing. Tell Ichabod to take his managing back to Germany. No use to us.”

•  •  •

James sat at the breakfast table with his plate of toast and the honey jar. He smiled when Lavinia came in. She had changed from a child with a sullen expression to a young woman whose greatest charm was the bloom of youth. Her mustard-colored wool dress caught the stream of sunlight as she passed the window.

“My dear Lavinia,” he said. “How very well you look. Well kempt and soigné. Will you join me at breakfast this morning and tell me all your secrets?”

“I have no secrets,” said Lavinia, turning scarlet, tears suddenly brimming over and running down her cheeks.

“Good lord, girl, I do not mean to pry. I only wanted to be agreeable. I have seen so little of you since I came back and I cherish each hour in your company.”

But Lavinia was weeping loudly into her napkin. It seemed a long time until she stopped and James felt it was rude for him to attack his toast while his daughter wept. So he waited.

“Papa,” she said, mopping the tears. “I do have—” She wept again.

“For God's sake, child, what is it? Tell me. And here, have a piece of toast.” He buttered a now-cold slice and dabbed on honey, handed it dripping to Lavinia. She took it and held it at arm's length as though it were a poison snake, then put it on the edge of his plate.

“It drips honey,” she said and unaccountably began to laugh at James with his tower of cold toast when the whole world knew he liked it hot and crunchy.

“Yes, that is a known property of honey—it drips. Would you care for toast without honey?”

“Yes.” She took the toast, put it on a plate, went to the sideboard and slid a poached egg onto the toast, brought the plate back to the table and began to cut up her breakfast. James observed that the egg also dripped, perhaps more fluidly than honey. They sat in companionable understanding while they ate.

“Papa,” said Lavinia. “I do have a secret.”

“Yes, I thought you might. We all have 'em. What's yours?”

“I think I might shock you.”

“Oh try, dear girl, do try. It has been years since I was shocked and I am keen to know the sensation again.”

“You are too silly.” She was a trifle fat, with dimpled hands and a plump chin.

“Not in the least. Silliness finished. I am your adoring papa and wish to know if there is any wish, no matter how picayune, I might grant you. You have only to speak.”

“Very well. It is this: I do not want to be ‘finished.' Nor do I want to ‘come out' nor catch a beau nor marry.” She took a breath. “I want to learn the timber trade.”